|
For audio click here
To save for later, right click and ‘Save as…’
John
4:1-42
[Read John 4:1-26]
When I was younger I
used to have a terrible paranoia that everything I thought was written
across my forehead. It was a very
disturbing thought.
Have you ever wondered
anything similar? What if everything that you were, was on display for
the whole world? Imagine if there
were no more secrets – nothing to prevent people seeing what really
goes on inside.
When I had this
paranoia as a child it was absolutely paralyzing. But I eventually learnt to grow out of
it. Do you know how I did
that? It wasn’t by telling myself
that deep down I’m a great guy and people will love to see the inner
me. I grew out of this phase by
learning how to wear masks.
Let me put it another
way…
[SLIDE]
This movie – the
Talented Mr Ripley – is a terrific exploration of how we wear masks. The caption of the film is “How far
would you go to become someone else?”
The main character Tom
Ripley – spends the film pretending to be something he’s not and as the
film develops his lies become more and more elaborate to hide the sins of
his past.
Eventually Tom Ripley
actually murders someone and the film is really all about how Tom Ripley
tries to hide even that great evil.
At one point in the film he says this:
Don’t you just take the past
and put it in a room, in the basement and lock the door and never go in
there. That’s what I do. Then you find someone special and all
you want to do is toss them the key and say ‘Open up. Step inside.’ But you can’t, because it’s dark and
there are demons. And if anyone
saw how ugly it was… [he just
trails off]
If anyone saw how ugly
our lives were – they would run a mile.
Right? Surely we must hide
those dark corners in our lives in the basement. Surely no-one could see into our
basement and still want us?
But at the same time –
we want people to see us for who we are.
As Tom says “When you find someone special – all you want to do is
toss them the key and say “open up, step inside.”” We long for someone to see how ugly it
is and to say “I’ve seen it. Even so – I accept you. I love you.”
In John chapter 4
we’ll meet a woman who has sought for meaningful relationships all her
life. She’s been married five
times (v18). She’d given the key
to her basement to five men and asked them all to step inside. All five saw the ugliness and they
left. But she’s persistent. She’s currently living with yet
another man – maybe he would accept her for who she is.
Well the big question
is – what will happen when this woman encounters The Man from heaven? How will Jesus relate to
this woman?
But before we dive
into the story I want to share with you one verse from the Old Testament
(the bit of the Bible written centuries before Jesus had this
conversation). Because I think this verse from the Old Testament will
help us to understand our story.
Here’s the verse. God is speaking about His people.
“Be appalled at this, O heavens and shudder with great horror”
declares the LORD. “My people
have committed two sins: They
have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own
wells, broken wells that cannot hold water.”
Can you picture this
scene in your mind? Here is the
LORD Almighty standing before a people with outstretched arms – offering
living water. And we have all
walked past Him and instead, to satisfy our thirst, we have taken a
shovel to dry ground and we have dug our own little wells that can’t even
hold the water we so desperately crave.
All the while the spring of living water stands, arms
outstretched, to provide eternal satisfaction for our thirsty souls. And all the while we work to make our
broken wells a little less broken.
Now the water here
symbolizes the Holy Spirit and the fulness of life we experience in
Him. So here the LORD is saying
“I provide overflowing satisfaction for your soul. But instead you trudge on past Me and
decide to try to make your own fun.
And it will not work.”
This woman we’ve just
read about. What were the broken
wells she was digging? Five
failed marriages and now onto a sixth relationship. Trying to find life in the arms of
another man. And each time she
tried she realised it was a broken well.
It didn’t last. What are
your broken wells? Where do you
try to find your ultimate happiness?
Complete this
sentence: My life would be fine
just as long as I had… what? I’d
be ok, so long as I was…
what? Whatever that thing
is – that’s the well that you’re drinking from. And unless that well is the LORD Jesus Christ – that well
is going to run dry. But what
will happen when the LORD Jesus comes to us in the midst of all our
broken wells? That’s what our
story will show us.
So let’s dive into the
story.
Jesus is going through
a part of the world called Samaria and he comes across a woman who is
drawing water from a well.
Two things that our
passage tells us about this.
Verse 9 says ‘Jews do not associate with Samaritans.’ And verse 27 says that Jesus’
disciples were surprised that Jesus would talk to a woman.
These things were not
done. Jesus did them.
What’s more all this
happened at the sixth hour – that’s high noon for you and me. This is the hottest part of the
day. And everyone knew – you
don’t draw water at the hottest part of the day. Only if you wanted to avoid people
would you come out in the blazing heat.
This woman comes out at the sixth hour.
So she’s a Samaritan,
which counts against her in the eyes of many. She’s a woman which counted against her in the eyes of
many. And she seems to be a kind
of social outcast. Probably her
five divorces had scandalized her village and now she was forced to avoid
people.
So how does relate to
this outcast?
He asks her a
question: When a Samaritan woman
came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
Jesus is talking to
her. Incredible! Not only that He asks her a question –
which invites relationship. He
asks her to do something for Him – which puts Him in her debt. And He asks for the opportunity to
share with her – something Jews and Samaritans just did not do.
The woman is amazed,
but Jesus says to her, v10:
“If you knew the gift
of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would
have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
If this woman only
knew who was offering her relationship!
If this woman really
understood who Jesus was she would have stopped looking for water
anywhere else. Now do you see why
we looked at that Old Testament verse.
Living water is exactly what the LORD God provides abd here is
Jesus offering it for free.
This can mean only one
thing: Jesus is the LORD God
Almighty. And He can provide the
living waters of the Holy Spirit.
If you recognize that Jesus is the true LORD of life all you need
to do is ask, and He will give you the Holy Spirit.
You can stop messing
around with your broken wells, and you can taste real life, if you just
ask Jesus.
It’s great news, but
the woman misunderstands:
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with
and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
It’s comical – Jesus
speaks of living water she can only think of running water. But Jesus tries again. He says:
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14
but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the
water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to
eternal life."
Jesus offers this
woman a relationship of such satisfaction and security it would surpass
everything she’s ever know. Now,
if ever this woman was going to open up her basement and ask someone in –
here was the Man she could trust.
Here is everything
this woman could ever want or need.
But unfortunately she still doesn’t quite get it:
The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't
get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
She’s starting to
understand that Jesus quenches our thirst but she’s still just thinking
of physical thirst. He just
doesn’t seem to be getting through, so Jesus cuts to the chase. He exposes the ugliness of her
basement.
He says verse 16:
“Go, call your husband
and come back.” “I have no
husband” she replied.
And here Jesus latches
onto the one honest and personal truth which the woman has offered.
Jesus said to her “You
are right in saying you have no husband.
The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is
not your husband. What you have
just said is quite true.”
Finally we’re getting
somewhere. Finally she says
something true. Jesus has cut
through all the masks of gender and nationality and religion and social
nicety and He barges into the woman’s basement and flings open the
door. He exposes all the
rebellious and foolish decisions of her life – all the failure and shame
– and Jesus just brings it out into the daylight.
‘You’ve been divorced
five times, the man you’re with won’t even marry you.’
Sin always sounds
worse when it’s said out loud.
When you keep it in the basement, in the darkness – it’s contained
and manageable. When you bring it
out into the light – it is a confronting reality. To expose someone’s sin is to cut right
to the heart of them.
That is how it felt to
the woman. After Jesus says This
to her the woman tells everyone in the town, verse 29: “Come see a man
who told me everything I ever did.”
Jesus puts His finger on her sin and because He does
that He sees “everything she ever did”.
Last night we saw how
Jesus describes himself as like a Doctor. And here he is diagnosing the illness in this woman’s life
– her sin. Now hear me carefully:
This woman’s sin wasn’t really her failed marriages – her failed marriages were a symptom
of the disease. The disease is
seeking to find life and happiness apart from God. Digging broken wells instead of coming
to the LORD to find life. And
Jesus diagnoses that as her problem so that He can cut it
out. Only when she can be honest
about her basement can she begin a real relationship with Jesus.
Let me ask you – what
would it be like to know that Jesus sees into the darkest corners of your
basement? What would it be like
to know that He can handle that darkness. That He will not run out on you. To know that is to know the true power
of transformation.
But how can I know
that for myself? And how can I
know that He won’t run out on me?
Well there are two
times in John’s Gospel where Jesus is described as thirsty. Here, and on the cross.
On the cross Jesus
says “I am thirsty.” Which is
incredible! He is the LORD who
offers the whole world the living waters of the Spirit. And on the cross He cries out I am
thirsty. Another place in the
bible talks about Him being parched and His toungue sticking to the roof
of His mouth. Jesus, who offers
the world living waters, goes to the cross parched.
Because the bible
says, on the cross Jesus takes our place. On the cross, Jesus steps into our guilty shoes and takes
what’s coming to us. We dig
broken wells, we should get thirsty.
We reject His living waters, we should die of dehydration. But instead the LORD Jesus takes our
place, He goes thirsty. And then
when He dies, John records this:
One of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear,
bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
Is that just a medical
record of what happened, like a coroners report? No.
John is explaining to us how we get the living waters. Jesus dies a parched husk of a man, so
that from Him flow the living waters of the Spirit to any who ask for
it. Jesus died, that we might
live. He is the One who loved us
enough not only to look into our basements, but to deal with them. To hang on the cross and bear the
punishment our sins deserve. And
to offer us in return eternal life, forgiveness, cleansing and the Holy
Spirit – for free and forever.
It’s wonderful
news. But maybe you need to think
it through a bit. This woman at
the well wasn’t transformed all at once.
Later on she says: Could this be the Christ?
What do you
think? Could Jesus really be the
King? The LORD who offers the
living waters of the Spirit to anyone who asks? Can He really be trusted?
Well the woman goes
off and brings people from the town to listen to Jesus. To investigate Him a bit more. Maybe that’s what you need to do. We’ve got these John’s Gospels that
you can have for free. They’re
our gift to you so that you can investigate this Jesus and ask yourself –
could He really be the One? Can
He really offer me new life? And
perhaps you can come back – maybe come back with friends – and you too
will conclude what this woman and her friends concluded:
Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is
the Saviour of the world.
Or perhaps you know
that Jesus is the spring of living waters. Are there broken wells that you’ve been digging? Do you need to come back to the source
of true life? Jesus says:
whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst
Do you want that? Jesus says, Just ask for it!
I’m going to say a
prayer now that’s for anyone who realizes they need to come to Jesus to
find the living waters, to receive His Spirit and to give up on the
broken wells. If that’s you,
maybe you could echo the prayer I say out loud in your heart. Jesus will hear you.
Let’s pray:
LORD Jesus,
I recognize that you
are the Lord of life. I know that
I have rejected you and tried to live life my own way. I am very sorry. I come to you now to receive your
forgiveness, your Holy Spirit, your living waters. Thank you that you died so that I can
live. Please come into my life
and transform me. Amen.
Back to sermons...
|
