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Today, we're going to be continuing our study of the book of John. And actually, you know this mic, I'm sorry. Just can't do it. Just right in my left peripheral field of vision. Y'all feel better now? I know, I do. Today we're going to be talking about one of the most well-known stories in the whole Bible. Okay, it's one that if you've grown up around the church or if you've even just engaged with a Christian before, you might have heard the story that we're going to be reading today in John chapter 4. It's the story of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at the well. Okay? It should sound familiar to most of us in the room. And you know, it's a story that has a lot of social history and a lot of scriptural background that help us kind of understand what's going on. And we are going to cover some of it here. But it's also a story that's been so widely studied and preached on and talked about in the church, kind of like the passage we talked about a few weeks ago, John 3.16. We feel so familiar with it, right, that it almost feels sort of old hat. It's like, oh yeah, this is the one where the woman talks to Jesus at the well, and I know it, and it's great. I got it. And we tend to kind of just brush over it before we get to the story that we don't know quite as well, okay? So, prelude to everything today. We're going to talk about this book. Before we read the Word of God, I want to step back and encourage us to do something that should feel familiar, but sometimes we forget to do when we read the Word of God. How do we approach this book? Okay? Clearly we know that this book is the story of God, okay? These are the words of God given to his church, given to us that we might know him, understand him, and see through the lens of history who he is, and believe him and follow him, right? Okay, so we see that slide right there. So that you may No, not that one. The other one. So that you may believe. Sorry, Amy. Totally just messed with you just there. So that you may believe, right? John 20, John says, I'm writing this for the purpose so you can know God, see who Jesus is, and believe in him. That's why the scriptures exist, right? To know God, see what his heart is, and to believe in him. So I've also got a friend of mine who's been really influential in my life. And he says, This book is God's story, right? This is the story of God. But this book is also our story. Okay? God gives us this scripture not only to understand him, but that we might understand ourselves. Okay? Hit me with that slide, Amy. Sorry, I totally messed you up. This is what Hebrews 4.12 says. This is what it's saying of the scriptures. The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Okay, so one of the purposes of this book is that when we read it, it does spiritual, emotional surgery on us. So we read it and we see ourselves more rightly as our own hearts are revealed under Scripture. All right. It's a magnifying glass to our hearts. Paul says it again, Romans chapter 15. For whatever was written in former days, which I think this qualifies. He was talking about the Old Testament, but these were all written in former days, right? Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. Okay? God's given us this book as a magnifying glass to our heart so we might see ourselves and see God in it and be encouraged. Okay? It's the purpose of this book. So as we read John 4, rather than just having a history lesson about Samaria, which I'm sure would be great, and we would all feel a little bit smarter as we left, but there probably wouldn't be any power in it, okay? I don't want to have a history lesson this morning. I want us to look at the Word of God and ask two questions. Who is God in this passage? What do we see about Jesus? Who is Jesus in John 4? Second, who am I? Who am I in this passage? Because this passage is not just about a random Samaritan woman that Jesus met by a well. It's also about us. We can see ourselves in this passage. So ask yourself those two questions because I'm praying that we would see the beauty of Jesus this morning. We wouldn't just read a story and expand on some content, but that we would see the story of the gospel through this woman and to see ourselves written into it. Because it is our story. Alright, so first things first, what we're gonna do is we're gonna open the Bible, we're gonna read our text for this morning, and I need to make a little caveat on the front end. Um, it's impossible to cover everything in this text, okay? It's 26 verses long, and it's incredibly, incredibly rich. I texted Nick like two or three times this week, and I was like, Nick, I can't fit it all in. And he was like, it's fine, you don't have to. Um So Jesus is gonna talk about several things in this passage. I'm not gonna be able to get to all of it. I'm sorry. We're gonna go, we're gonna look at three main points. Is that okay? You guys look really disappointed. Okay, you're not disappointed? Okay, good, you laugh.

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So I got three main observations from this text, okay? We're not gonna get into everything, and in fact, uh, we're gonna actually get to talk about uh some of this stuff in a few weeks. Jesus kind of goes over some of the content later. So don't be too sad if we don't get to everything. All right. John chapter 4. It's kind of long, so dig in and buckle up because we're just gonna read through it. This is the word of God. 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, 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, that is, noon. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 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. 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, 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 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. Everybody doing okay? Okay, we're almost done. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You're right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that 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 is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Boom. Such that's awesome. Somebody said boom before I did. You were feeling it. They too was feeling it. Alright. So, context of this passage. Jesus is like really causing a pretty big stir in Israel at this time. Okay, let's consider what's happened just in the first three chapters of John. He started calling disciples, he started calling followers, and then he was at a wedding, he turned water into wine, and his followers were like, whoa, this guy is the real deal. We're sticking with Jesus, right? So he's got this passionately devoted group of followers. They at least some of them know that he's the Messiah, but many more are just following him, like attaching themselves to Jesus. So he's getting a following. And not only that, but previously, a few chapters ago, he made a whip and went into the temple and started hitting people and turning over tables. Okay. So also that, also that has happened. So Jesus is definitely well known to the religious leaders in Jerusalem. He's making a very big splash, and they're very frustrated. They're very frustrated with Jesus. So we know the Jewish leaders already despised John the Baptist, okay? The guy, the forerunner of Jesus. They despised him. They did not like being called snakes, they did not like being criticized publicly by John, who called them a brood of vipers. Pharisees did not like John. They did not like him so much that they ended up throwing him in prison. So Jesus, who's even more popular than John, and taking even more people away from the Pharisees, they really, really don't like Jesus, okay? We actually will find out in John 4, the very next chapter. Wait, this is John 4, John 5. In John 5, the very next chapter, at this time the Jews were already making plans to kill him. Alright? He had already frustrated them so much that the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus, and they were already making plans to do it. That's why Jesus is like, I'm gonna up and go to Galilee, because it's not quite time for me to go to the cross. My time has not yet come. So I'm gonna go to Galilee, continue my ministry there because there's so much heat in Jerusalem. So that's why Jesus goes to Galilee. Okay, so just really fast, bonus point as I was reading the scripture. To any of us in this room, I know I do, when we see somebody else that is getting more attention than us, more acclaim than us, their star is rising, our star is falling, they're starting to get the spotlight, we're stepping out of the spotlight. Okay. Does anybody struggle with feeling jealous in those moments? Yes, okay. Almost ten people. Bang, no. We all struggle with that, right? Okay. When we sense that we're being eclipsed by another person, we struggle with jealousy because we find in those moments that our value is coming from what other people are saying about us, or our control, or our prestige, right? Okay, that spirit in us, that that sin in us, is a Pharisaical spirit, okay? We resemble the Pharisees, wanting to hold on to our position, our authority, our place of prominence, right? Something we all struggle with. So when we feel that, which we all do from time to time, what we have to do is confess that, make war on that sin because it's insidious and it makes our heart sick, okay? Jealousy, comparison, when somebody else is getting more attention, that that makes our heart sick, and we have to make war against it. Has nothing to do with the rest of the sermon. Just wanted to give a little bonus there for whoever that was for. Okay, so to get to Galilee, Jesus is on his way. He has to pass through Samaria, which is an area with a really, really complicated history with the rest of Israel. The reason is because hundreds of years prior, I think like 600 years before this, lots of Israel, the northern part of the kingdom, they had been taken into captivity by the people of Assyria. Okay? Assyria is this really bad, warlike nation, very, very powerful. They even got the name Empire after them, Assyrian Empire. To get big enough and mean enough, they say empire. Okay? They came, they conquered the people of Israel, and they took them away into captivity. The reason this happened, God had told the people, he says, follow me, observe me, don't worship any other gods, I'll take care of you. Don't do that, you're gonna get taken into captivity. Hence, Israel starts to follow other gods, they stop worshiping the one true God, and God keeps his promise. Okay, Israel gets punished, they get conquered by Assyria and taken into captivity and into their country. So the next thing that happens is the king of Assyria, he takes some people from his empire, right? Lots of different places. One of them is Babylon, it's the only one I can pronounce, and he takes these people and he puts them into Samaria. He brings them into the place where the people he just took out of were. Are you tracking? Take out Israel, put in other people, okay? People from Babylon. So when these people get to Samaria, which is part of Israel, they start to get married to the people, they start to get married to the Israelites. The Israelites that are there start to kind of adopt some of the religious and cultural practices of the Assyrians who came and lived there. And over time, um, the religions began to mix, the ethnicities began to mix. And so actually, this is what 2 Kings says. These nations, meaning the Samaritans, feared the Lord and also served their carved images, their idols. The children did likewise, even their children's children, as their fathers did, so they do to this day. So eventually the Samaritan religion became a completely separate religion from Judaism, right? They had a separate place of worship. They built a different temple on a different mountain, they did sacrifices, they said, we're only gonna follow the first five books of the Old Testament, only the Torah, all that other stuff about prophets. You know, we're just gonna ignore that. Um, we're gonna do things our own way, okay? They had a completely different religious life from the people of Israel, and they also, their ethnicity was different. And so the Jewish people viewed Samaritans as half-breeds, okay? That's that's how they looked at it. It's a gross term and it's awful, okay? But it is very apt to see how the Jews looked at the people of Samaria. Okay, they they utterly despised them, and the feeling was mutual. These people did not like one another. Okay? But what we get to see in this passage is Jesus breaking down all of these barriers, particularly the racial barrier with Samaria, okay? Because that's what Jesus does. Jesus breaks down these divisions. We see this in Galatians 3, okay? One of my favorite passages. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Okay, we're gonna go into that more in a minute. So, Jesus is walking through Samaria. It's a really hot day, right? It's noon, it's hot because it's in the Middle East, right? It's really, really hot. And Jesus, God, who became a man, who became flesh, gets tired, right? Which is awesome. That God put on flesh and God has experienced a hot day. Alright, it's just pretty cool that Jesus knows what that feels like. He's sweaty, he's tired, and he sits down by a well. And as he sits, the Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water, right? So, what can we infer about this woman? Quite a bit, actually. Um, we can see from the time of day that she is a social outcast. Um, she's coming alone to the well in the heat of the day when most women in that culture would come in groups and they would come early in the morning. Um, it was less hot, and then they could have water for the rest of their day's activities. So she's isolated and she's by herself. We find later in this chapter that it's most likely that she's been ostracized due to her marriage situation, um her multiple marriages, maybe some other sexual immorality, we don't know. Um and with the current situation, she's living with the man who isn't her husband, right? And so, because of her shame, her social shame, and the stigma attached to her, she has to come by herself to the well in the heat of the day. Um, just to avoid, just to avoid other people. So, in this context, knowing what we know about Samaria, knowing what we know about this woman's situation, we have to realize how dramatic of a statement is Jesus's. Is that bothering anyone else? What is that? Oh, almost. Okay, we're just gonna have to deal with that. Please, Lord, let that go away. Because it's really distracting. In the name of in the name of Jesus, be gone fly. Okay. So Jesus' statement, give me a drink, alright, it's incre this woman can't even really compute it, right? He's intentionally crossing every social, moral, ethnic, religious divide that divides human beings. Yes. This is gonna go great on the podcast, by the way. It's gonna make a ton of sense. Alright. So, Jesus is crossing every single one of these lines social, moral, ethnic, and religious. The woman is basically flabbergasted. I have that word in my sermon. I don't know where it comes from, but she's flabbergasted. Um, she's totally shocked. Her response is essentially, why in the world are you talking to me? Why would you ever talk to me? Why is this happening? The phrase is the phrase it uses for Jews to not associate with Samaritans really has the literal meaning. They don't use the same cups and dishes that Samaritans use. Okay? They wouldn't even share cutlery, they wouldn't share cups because the Jews would view it as unclean. Probably Samaritans would as well. So Jesus is asking this woman, the social outcast from Samaria, he says, I want you to take your cup or your bowl, and I want you to hand it to me, and I want you to let me have a drink. Okay? Now I don't know the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about that, um, but for me, I'm an American and I'm from the southern United States, and it's easy for me to think of a time in our country's history when people weren't drinking out of the same cups, or people weren't drinking out of the same water fountains, or people had to use different bathrooms, or sit in different spots on a bus. Okay? Hello, anyone? Y'all remember that? Okay. So it's real for a lot of you in here that actually lived through things like Jim Crow, that lived through things like the civil rights movement. Okay, that's real for a lot of people in this room. And even just our country's history and our current political climate, right? We're very familiar with injustice and bigotry. It's something that we see even to this day, okay? Racism and classism and all these sorts of divisions still exist around us. And the truth is Jesus absolutely despises that. God hates that. He hates it. And that word is very intentionally used because racism, what was going on then and what's what goes on still today, racism flies in the face of the truth that all human beings of all kinds, all stripes, are made in the image of God. Okay? God hates it because it is sin. It is sin to judge another person's value by what their skin looks like. It's very clear. Genesis 1.27 says, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Okay? Every one of us in this room is a descendant of Adam. Okay? We have all inherited this same inherent value and dignity because we are made in the image of God, right? We're all part of the same human family. So when we see how Jesus speaks to this woman, we see this incredible truth about God, alright? Our God breaks down man-made divisions between people. Okay? Our God, so what he does, he breaks down man-made divisions between people. Said it a minute ago in Galatians, right? There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you're Christ, then you're Abraham's offspring. Heirs according to promise. Alright? Jew or Greek, right? Political differences, right? What country you're from, what your political origin is. God wants to break it down. Our ethnicity, our ethnic differences, alright, God wants to break it down. Slave or free, okay? Who you are socially, your social status, your financial status, alright? Does not matter in the kingdom of God. We are all one in Christ Jesus. Male or female, different genders do not have separate value or worth in God's kingdom. Alright? We are all one in Christ Jesus. So God intentionally wants to press on the divisions between us as human beings, to call them out, break them down. Because the new covenant that we have in Christ's blood, it opens the way for all people, all human beings, all types of people to have a relationship with the one true God. Alright? It does not matter who. We are all equally invited to sit at the table with Christ. We see this in Revelation 7. We see this image of every tribe, every nation, every tongue gathered together, worshiping Christ in the fulfillment of his kingdom. It says this in Revelation 7.

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After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Alright, it's very straightforward, right? We know this, okay? We know God despises racial bigotry. But we have to continue to just announce this truth to the world because we have to be countercultural as the church of Jesus Christ. We have to be a loud voice in our culture saying every human being has worth. Alright? We have to do that. The church has screwed this up in the past, right? If we look at our history, we see the church propagating some of these things that God hates. We have to do a better job, okay? We have to do a better job. It's our role as followers of Jesus. And I know we know it. I know we know it, but we have to say it. We have to remind our hearts of this truth because we're human beings, right? And our bent is to separate from each other. Our bent is to find division, ways to compare, to have people be other than us. That's a human nature sin issue and we have to continually by the word of God and by his spirit remind ourselves to fight against that with everything that we have as the body of Christ. Alright first point before we move on it's easy if followers of Jesus, we look at this Samaritan woman, right? They can respond in a couple of ways can say, man, this poor lady she's really she's really messed up. Alright? And to do that we forget this is God's story, but who else's story is this? It's our story. Okay? This story is our story. We look at this woman's multiple marriages and we think wow she's really really broken. We judge her, failing to see that our brokenness is the same or we just pity her, not realizing that our own need is just as great for grace. This woman, I mean clearly she's made bad choices in her life. She's experienced sin. And Jesus doesn't excuse that behavior, okay? Jesus doesn't say it's fine, but what he does is he uses them to expose her real thirst, her real inner need for him. Alright? She came to the well looking for water, right? She came because she was thirsty and Jesus is going to offer her life instead, right? We are the Samaritan woman. I was hinting at this earlier in this story our role is we are the woman of Samaria. In what ways, okay? We have each in our heart married ourselves to idols. Okay? It might it's probably not that we've all had five spouses but we all time and time again will look to money and possessions to give us security right we war against it. We know that's not right, but time and time again we worship at the altar of money. Alright that is a marriage that we have made to sin. Alright we've married ourselves to this sin with the false belief that this is going to give us what we want. This is going to quench our thirst for security. Okay? We look to people's opinions of us to our acclaim to our notoriety to being well thought of all right we make that our highest aim rather than to please God. We live our lives to receive praise from others rather than to receive praise from Jesus right we're marrying ourselves to that sin. Our hearts crave it because we think that in getting it our thirst is going to be quenched right there are a million different examples honestly of this that we could use and every single person in this room is guilty of it. Too often you know we see in the church in the Christian church people play the roles of the Pharisees or the Samaritans that have ostracized this woman rather than realizing that that's who we are. We compare our sins to other peoples and we use our own morality as a standard by which we find our self-worth or by which we judge other people. If we compare well to this woman because I've only had one spouse or you know I've only had two I don't know in whatever way you're better than she is we compare ourselves to her in order to feel more comfortable with who we are. But Jesus a couple weeks ago Nick talked about this at the end of chapter two of John Jesus discerns the thoughts of the heart. Jesus sees us as we truly are and what he tells us is he says to each one of us in this room go call your husband and come here. Go to the things in your heart that you're married to the sins and idols that you are worshiping go get them bring them to me. I know that they're there. I've already seen your heart and seen what you're worshiping. Go call your husband and come here just like this very literal well that this woman had to come to every day she was also running to this other well of men. All right she was looking for her thirst to be quenched I don't know exactly what the the sin at the root of her heart was but she thought that she was going to find in a spouse what she was really thirsty for. Not only was she going to this literal well every day she was also running to this other well searching for peace searching for comfort searching for meaning right and we each do the same thing. When Jesus said go call your husband and come here he didn't just like get lucky like oh he knew exactly what her issue was he knew exactly what her struggle was and what the real thirst that she had was and he said I see it I want to address it and I want to call you to come to me and we're going to deal with it because I want you to have your thirst truly quenched. D.A. Carson wrote a commentary on John he says this about when Jesus kind of changes the subject because he kind of just says hey call your husband and come here seems out of the blue but he says the change of subject though abrupt is not artificial. The Samaritan woman has already failed to grasp who Jesus is and misconstrued the nature of the living water he was promising. By this turn in the dialogue Jesus is indicating that she's also misunderstood the true dimensions of her own need, the real nature of her self-confessed thirst. So I don't know when when I say you know we all have these things that we're married to these sins that we run to the well that we go after again and again to try to have our thirst quenched. I hope and pray that the Holy Spirit is bringing something to mind for you. Jesus' word just like it was to this woman is the same to us. He says call your husband come here come to me. Alright? So just consider that he already knows what it is. Jesus knows that we're thirsting and he wants us to bring these false idols to him and have our thirst truly quenched. Alright now I get to my favorite part. We get to the crux of the message which is where Jesus brings worship into the discussion. We've noticed the way that Jesus gets this woman's attention is he gently and firmly but very straightforwardly kind of brings to the forefront her sin, her true thirst okay this is the crucial aspect of coming to faith in Jesus. To be able to worship and love Jesus as our Savior we have to come to the realization by God's Spirit that we desperately desperately need one. So you notice what the woman says she tries to skirt the issue. Alright Jesus says bring your husband to come here and she says I have no husband our kids never just tell half truths I don't know why that came on mind but it's totally the way to get out of punishment right tell a half truth. And Jesus responds by saying this He says you're right in saying I have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband what you said is true. Alright see what she does next Sir I perceive that you're a prophet our fathers worshiped on this mountain but you say that in Jerusalem is a place for people ought to worship. Alright y'all notice how she changes the subject alright? So Jesus changed the subject earlier to shine a light on her need to shine a light on her sin to expose it so she could realize what her true need is and she's trying to change the subject in order to run from it in order to hide from it. Alright John Piper says it like this I really like this. He says Jesus as long as we're on the subject of my adultery where do you think we should worship? The mountain of Jerusalem. Alright we but but whose story is this right this is our story okay this is a classic move for all people we do this all the time when our sin gets exposed we run we hide we change the subject right last chapter John 320 it says for everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it so that his deeds may not be exposed right God knows the human heart. This is what we do when we feel exposed we are going to run or change the subject the Samaritan woman she changes the discussion from an exposure of sin to a discussion about religious tradition and the formalism of worship. Okay? We never do that. We never do that right no we do. We hide behind theology or arguments about tradition and preference to avoid the convicting work of the Holy Spirit in our life so one of the roles of the body of Christ the church not the only role but one of the most important roles is that we live in community with one another. And as we live in community people begin to see who we actually are right community is not attendance at a service community is life on life with other people as the body of Christ and as we do that our sin gets exposed and as we get exposed first of all hopefully we should experience unconditional love from the body of Christ but also as a community we make war on that sin, right? Sin comes up, we lovingly expose it, we deal with it and we remain in community. Alright it's called sanctification looking a little bit but a little bit more like Jesus the sharpening process the process of sanctification is sometimes really awkward and painful and people are going to try every way that we can to avoid it. We're going to try every way we can to avoid it. And the reason that and the way that this woman tries is is going to a discussion basically about religious issues. It's a lot easier to get frustrated at church and to make a big deal about I don't know I grew up church of Christ you guys this stuff happened all the time. Churches have literally split over like the color of the carpet in a church building but maybe it's like for somebody else worship style maybe it's like I don't like the style of worship and uh we're out. We're just leaving because of this one aspect of church that that doesn't really conform to my understanding of the way this should play out. What's way harder to do is to follow the command of Christ in Ephesians 5 to love our wife as Christ loved the church. Alright? To come to terms with the fact that husbands we can tend to treat our wife far with far less honor than God demands of us because we are called to be Jesus to lay our life down to the point of death to serve our spouse to serve our wife okay actually living that out and coming to terms the fact that we're failing at that is a lot harder than just having a theological discussion about some topic right we tend to hide behind those discussions sometimes really about what's going on in our heart and talk about our sins. It's a lot easier to fight about um the theology of baptism which is important and needs to be understood by the church but it's a lot easier to just have a religious discussion about that than it is to sacrificially give to the people in our life around us, right? To follow the commands of Christ. I know I'm putting I'm pushing on I'm intentionally pushing on big ones okay we can hide behind our religious formalism in our doctrinal obedience and checking off the boxes of our religious formalism rather than experiencing life in the spirit and in community because it's easier because our sin gets exposed. We hide as human beings behind religion and by religious observance of traditions and laws and rules that the church puts on us because it's so much easier to do that than it is to actually live a life engaged with the person of God, living in obedience to his spirit and letting his spirit call out sin in us and making war on it. John Wesley says this, it's one of my favorite quotes he says Orthodoxy or right opinion is at best a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers, by which he means emotions, thoughts, feelings right tempers cannot subsist or exist without right opinions. Yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward him. Satan is proof of this we are so much like our father Adam when our sin gets exposed we will go hide in the bushes we hide behind our observance of religious activities. We come and attend a service right we hide behind that so that we might not be exposed in community not have our sins exposed by God Jesus tells this woman his father is searching for worshipers to worship him in spirit and in truth.

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Okay?

SPEAKER_00 36:35

God is not just looking for a set of adherence to certain religious behaviors and worship practices, okay? He's not even looking for people who are able to correctly recite religious words in the correct order. Okay? It's not what God's looking for he's looking for people whose lives, souls and spirits have been set on fire by the grace of God, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, full of the knowledge of God as a person. Not a pragmatic thing to be studied and looked at and you know discussed, shaped, whatever. God is a person. And as a person we can actually have a conscious relationship with God. And he wants to actually have a personal relationship with us not be discussed like a painting in the Louvre. Alright? God wants more than that. He's looking for worshipers that worship in spirit and in truth Spurgeon says this didn't think I wasn't going to throw a Spurgeon quote in there people go to their place of worship and sit down comfortably and think they must be Christians when all the time all that their religion consists in is listening to an orator, having their ears tickled with music and perhaps their eyes amused with graceful action and fashionable manners, the whole being no better than what they hear and see at the opera. Not so good perhaps in point of aesthetic beauty and not an atom more spiritual. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. So how many times in Romans 12 did Paul mention music none. Paul gave us the definition the scriptural definition of worship no mention of music read again by the mercies of God present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So worshiping in spirit and truth is when a believer in Jesus Christ filled with God's Holy Spirit joyfully and completely surrenders their entire life to the person of Jesus and to knowing and obeying him more fully. That is what worship is we worship in spirit with all our heart and our mind and our strength Shema Israel Deuteronomy 6. We worship in spirit with our whole heart fueled by his spirit in us. We worship in truth as we worship the God of Scripture and we live in obedience to what his word says our full life response our spirit and truth worship comes out of the knowledge just like the Samaritan woman we're broken. We come to this well thirsty we come to God desperate because we have all run to other lovers to other sins to other wells to find satisfaction okay and God wants to meet that needs not you once a week to sit in an ugly red chair and sing some songs and pay your 10% membership dues and go home and not change. That is not worship. Raising your hands because the song says to raise the hands great that's awesome I love that that is that's not what worship is worship is thirsty people coming to Jesus with their whole life saying I need to have my thirst quenched by the only well that is going to really meet me which is Jesus Christ. And then as we're filled with the Spirit our life overflows with obedience to God's word with love for other people we begin to change we begin to walk away from sin full of his spirit and knowing him as a person in truth that is worship. Okay? Singing is part of that 1% of it maybe I don't know I'm not a mathematician and you know I, you know, my role on staff I don't know we're gonna change what it is. I'm worship leader. I'll just put it that way okay if I sing great songs every week and y'all are like weeping in your seats which doesn't happen but that'd be cool. But if that's what happens and if like you aren't encouraged to go and live in obedience to Jesus with a relationship and your risen Savior who is real and wants to actually have a relationship with you okay if that's not happening and I just taught you a cool song I'm not a worship leader. Alright? Because our worship is our lives overflowing as a response to who God is and what he's done. And so this morning remember we all are the Samaritan woman we all look to other wells to satisfy us and guess what? They don't does not work. Jesus is saying to each one of us call your husband come here whatever well you're going to bring that along and come to me that I might really quench your need that I might really meet your need quench your thirst and out of response to that our whole life is our worship. Our whole life this is our story we are the broken woman at the well in need of a savior to meet us in need of hope in need of this inner desire and longing for our thirst to be quenched to be met. And Jesus wants to meet it He is in this room wanting to meet with us this morning to expose our sin and say I'm here come to me let's pray God we love you and uh so grateful that you met us in our sin. You called us when we weren't even looking for you God we were looking just for another well just to work for a little bit longer. But Jesus you came and you offered us yourself you offered us life and so Lord I pray that you would help us by your Spirit to be obedient to you to respond not just by being religious or just doing some traditions or attending some service God but by offering our life in joyful obedience to you that our worship might be more than just songs we sing that it would be an overflow of all of our life God help us be worshipers. Enlarge our picture of what worship truly is God that we might truly experience more of you. Amen