We'll go with that. As Tom said, I'm going to be speaking on John chapter 4 which is mostly taken up.
With the woman at the well this morning. The Samaritan woman at the well. And I owe you a bit, he's right that.
My theme is certainly parallels with and contains some of. What the song that we just sang mostly he just sang.
But that we just sang along on the choruses at least with. But that it's not directly centered in on that.
And I owe you a little bit of explanation for that. And that is that this is a Very, very rich chapter.
There is a lot. Of material here and there's really not a way to break it up. Mean you can't just take half of the story and leave everybody hanging wondering okay so what happens next you have to do you don't have to do the whole chapter And I'm not doing the whole chapter.
But you have to get all the way to verse 45. Now, most of you have heard me speak before, whether on Sunday morning or on Wednesday night.
And you know that I don't. Have a good track record of stopping on time.
And we're looking at 45 verses. So I had to make some, Hopefully judicious.
Edits and I was I was working late into the day and late into the week, later into the week than I wanted to.
Making decisions on what part of the message, which of the messages. From this chapter to really dial in on.
And so I'll tell you as the conclusion of my explanation what that choice is. And I want to look at this sort of from a Samaritan perspective.
I want to look at this. And ask. What the Samaritans woman's perspective was.
What Christ's perspective on this was. Ask why why does this happen? Where it happens, when it happens, and to whom it happens.
That's the approach that I'm going to take. There are some things that I will only be able for the sake of time.
To mention and will have to pass over. I hope that we can be encouraged by those things that I do have time to focus on.
It's a water chapter. I brought water.
And I'll take that SIP because with that.
Even though I think most of us are fairly familiar with this chapter with this story. Still, before we jump into it, I want to read.
Almost the entire chapter. So if you would look with me. At John chapter 4 now that I have wet my whistle.
I will read most of Chapter 4, down through verse 45.
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, John the Baptist is who that is.
Although Jesus did not himself baptize, but only his disciples. He left Judea and departed again for Galilee and he had to pass through So he came to a town of Samaria called Saikar, 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, which is a Bible way of saying 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, 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.
Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here.
The woman answered him, II have no husband.
Jesus said, you were right in saying, I have no husband. For you have had. 5 husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceived that you were a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but y'all 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 don't know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is now here. When true worshippers 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 him in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him, I know that 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.
. Just then his disciples came back They marveled that he was talking with a woman. But no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?
So the woman left her jar, her 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.
Now skip down to verse 39. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there 2 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. Only down through 42.
I apologize. Spoke incorrectly last time. That's the passage that I want us to look at today.
And before I begin, I'd like to open in prayer.
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for. For how thickly it is put together for how much is there.
We thank you for. The actions of your son and his life in this world. We thank you for how much we can learn from him.
For how much we can learn from the people around him. Father, we pray this morning that as we As we look into this chapter as we look into this story of this interaction between your son, Jesus Christ, and the Samaritan woman.
That our hearts would be open to what you have us to learn. Father, we pray for me as I speak.
That you would guide my words and Allow me to say those things. That are useful and to pass over those things that are not.
Father, we commit this time to you. We ask in your son's name. Amen.
So he goes. He meets the woman, she introduces them to the town. And he stays there 2 days and many.
Come to believe in him. It sounds like this Samaritan mission or this this little stop at Sycar anyway.
Was a resounding success. And as I said earlier, and I'll restate now. I'm going to have to skip a lot of really good material in this chapter because there's just so much.
But what I want to focus on is this in this chapter. Why does Jesus do? The things that he does.
Why? What motivates him? To make the particular choices that he makes. Because I don't think he's just sort of rolling with it, right?
Jesus is not just saying, okay, let's go up here. Will see what happens if something happens well address it if nothing happens we'll just keep going No, I think he's He knows what's going on.
And he's got this all worked out. I think he works it all out. And he as he's going.
I think he directs, he steers. The conversation, he directs and steers the actions at least of his own actions and those of his disciples.
To get to his actual end goal.
And I think that starts right from the beginning. As he's leaving Judea where he's been working and he's raised a little bit of a ruckus.
And he's headed back to Galilee, which is sort of his home turf.
And we come to verse 4.
And verse 4 says, and he had to pass through Samaria.
He had to pass. Through Samaria. No, we didn't. No, he didn't.
He didn't have to pass through some area.
The quickest route is through Samaria, right? Judea is in the south. I'll remind you of some geography.
I'll be reminding you of history later. I'll try to keep you awake through all of that.
But. Judea is in the south. Galilee is way up in the north. And in between is the separate political entity of Samaria.
And so the fastest way from Judea to Galilee is to go through Samaria. Just like when I'm in North Carolina and I'm coming home.
The fastest way to get here is to go right through Chicago.
But you know, sometimes that's not the best. Choice even if it is the fastest choice and you might go you might decide I'm going to go a little bit around.
I'm not going to go straight up, 94. I'm going to use 294.
And go a little bit around or if you really want to avoid it. You can cut all the way over to like the Urbana-champaign area and then head north and you can come in to Milwaukee from the southwest.
There are a lot of choices. Jesus had a lot of choices. He did not have to go through Samaria.
He could have gone. East of the Jordan and come up. That, that would have been.
And a lot of people have made a big deal out of this, that that's the normal way.
It's not exactly the normal way. The normal way is to cut through Samaria. But the the holiest way is to avoid the Samaritans all together and to go east of Jordan and come up and come into Galilee in that way.
But it's not like it's some kind of. Crazy thing to go through Samaria.
OK, the rabbis actually had come up with rules about what you do if you're going through Samaria.
It's like, okay, you do this, you do this, you do this, you avoid doing these kinds of things and that'll make your trip just fine.
So they don't condemn it. They just come up with some guidelines for it.
Verse 4 says he had to go through some area.
So why did he have to go through Samaria?
I'll just a little tidbit. The word there that gets translated. Had to? In most of the New Testament and in the Gospel of John in particular, almost always.
Refers to a divine say a divine imperative, a divine necessity. God wants them to do something. They have to.
Because this is from God. That's the kind of had to that he has. He has a reason to go through Samaria.
He had to go through Samaria. Because he wanted to reach this Samaritan village. He wanted to reach the Samaritan people.
In particular, he wanted to at least start with. This Samaritan woman. You might say he had an appointment in Samaria.
And that's why he had to go.
That's not the only choice that he makes though, right? The next one is his choice of this well.
Summery is not huge, but they're Lots of towns in Samaria. And there are lots of wells.
And Samaria. And he could have chosen any of them. But John tells us a lot about this place.
So this place. Must be important. This place is important, not just to our understanding of the story, but this This place is important to Jesus decision making.
As he decides that he has to go through Samaria.
So what does John tell us about it? John tells us that he came to verse 5, he came to a town of Samaria called near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacobs well was there. All right, well, we know in from Genesis 33 and for the sake of time.
Yeah, because we're we're going to run up against it eventually. So for the sake of time I won't turn there.
You can write it down and check me on this later. But Genesis 33 starting in verse 18.
Jacob acquires a field near the town of Shechem. And that field, in fact. When 400 years later, the children of Israel, all the descendants of Jacob.
Return to the land. That field is where they bury Joseph's bones. And that field it says becomes an inheritance.
For Joseph's sons for the half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. So that continues on.
So it seems that that's. At least generally where we are. Some people even identify. This town, Seikar, which honestly we don't know that much about.
We can't positively identify. Exactly where Sycar is. But one of the theories is that it's the name that Shechem had taken on by the time we get to the New Testament.
It's possible. It's not definitive. But the fact that They're both associated with this field that Jacob bought.
And gave to Joseph at least as an inheritance. Leads people to think that. Now what we do know pretty sure is this well.
We can you can still go to Israel today. And you can visit the site of Jacobs well. And unlike most of the New Testament old Testament historical sites in Israel.
There is really not lot of question. There's not much disagreement about it. The the location of Jacob's well.
It's never really been lost to cultural awareness and so We pretty well are confident. The place that they would take you is the right place.
It is the place where this event took place. Don't look forward in the Old Testament. You won't find it.
There's There's no reference to Jacob's well as a special place. In the Old Testament.
But Jacob's well that they knew and that Jesus stopped out. Is still known to us today.
So what makes this place?
What makes this place the place where Jesus decided? To encounter the Samaritans for the first time.
I said I don't think it's just happenstance. I don't think he just was going along the road.
Oh, here's a convenient well. I'm going to stop here. I'm kind of thirsty, so I'm going to send all my disciples into town with all the cups and all the buckets and all the drinking busts and all the money and I'm going to sit here with nothing.
At the well because I'm thirsty. I don't think he did that.
You probably could tell by the way I was saying that, that I don't think he did that.
Now I think he chose this well for a particular reason. And to get into that, I want to look at who the Samaritans are.
And also, and this might be a little different from who they are. Also who they think of themselves as.
Who they think they are. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. But it's important to note that they don't think of themselves.
In the same way that the Jewish people in Judah would have thought of themselves. And they don't think of themselves quite in the same way that we would.
Since we're coming to them and encountering them. Only through the biblical text. They have their own self understanding, their own tradition.
And I think that plays into this.
What we know is based on the history and the books of Samuel and Kings and Chronicles.
It's also based on what we hear about them from the profits. But, and this is important to remember.
They don't accept any of those books as scripture. They don't read Samuel. Or kings or Isaiah.
Or the Psalms, especially the Psalms of David. They don't read any of that as scripture.
The only thing that the Samaritans have as scripture. Is the 5 books of Moses.
The Pentateuch. We still have the Samaritan Pentateuch. We, you know, scholars.
Who can read all of that stuff a whole lot better than I can. Use the Samaritan Panatook.
For textual criticism when something's really hard to figure out. In the Hebrew text that we have.
They look at a bunch of different things to figure out what it says and one of them is the Samaritan Pentateuch.
But that's all they have is those 5 books of Moses.
Their country. If you remember, when I was laying out the geography, their countries somewhat reduced.
But it's north of Judea, New Testament Judea. In the Old Testament, it's north of Judah.
Gallee actually would have been included. In Samaritan territory. Essentially, If you go back to your Old Testament history, we're talking about the northern kingdom of Israel.
After Solomon's reign, when Raabo was on the throne. And the country splits into 2 kingdoms.
The southern kingdom of Judah. Which is the tribes of Judah, Benjamin. And some of the levites, because the Levites were all over the.
The land. So that becomes the country of Judah. And the northern tribes, the other 10. Becomes the kingdom of Israel.
Or we sometimes call it the northern kingdom. Because if we call it Israel, we get confused because we think the whole thing is Israel.
So we call it the Northern Kingdom. And they split way back at the time of Raya Bowam after Solomon.
And the way they become those Samaritans. Is that the Assyrian Empire around 7 57 30 something like that BC.
Overruns the northern kingdom they don't conquer the southern kingdom of Judah. But they conquered the northern kingdom and they carry off.
The people from the northern kingdom into exile. And they transplant a bunch of people from other parts of their empire.
Into the land of the northern kingdom, into those lands that were occupied. Now they don't take everybody.
Sometimes it sounds like they took everybody that just mass exodus. Everybody's got to go. The land's totally empty.
But that's. Not, that's not actually the case. They don't move everybody out.
They move everybody out who's of any power, wealth, influence, anybody that could cause political problems for them.
But the riffraff, you know. The farm laborers. People who can't really They can't read and they can't start a revolution or anything like that.
They leave them behind.
Then they bring in these people from from Iraq, from like I say, other parts of the Assyrian Empire.
And these populations mix. They begin to mix. Now, I'm confident that they don't take them all out because a couple of generations later in Second Chronicles chapter 30 won't read that either, sorry.
But in Second Chronicles, chapter 30, Hezekiah is restoring worship. He's the king of Judah, the southern kingdom.
And he's restoring worship in Judah. He's restoring worship in the temple. He is restoring the celebration of the Passover, and he sends messages.
The Assyrian conquest and after the deportation of people from the northern kingdom. He sends messengers all over that territory of Samaria.
To go to all those tribes and invite them to come back to Jerusalem. To celebrate the Passover.
So there are still Israelites up there. They're the riffraff. They're not the ones that are going to be able to.
To oppose a Syria very effectively. But there are still Israelites up there. And like I say, they intermingle both in religion.
And their marriages and their families. With the people who come in. From other parts of the.
Empire. And both of those mixtures, the religious mixture and the fact that we're talking about you know.
Interracial for lack of a better term. Interracial marriages and interracial people.
Is part of why There was such animosity between the people of Judah. And later in the New Testament the people of Judea.
The Jews as we know them. The Right? They're in the Old Testament, we don't talk about Jews because it's all of Israel.
Jews comes from the fact that the tribe of Judah was the dominant tribe in the southern kingdom. So that's where the animosity comes from between the Jewish people and the Samaritan people.
Sorry, I'm having to find myself here in my notes. Like I say, there was hostility just from identity.
Just from that racial identity just from the fact that that they had sort of mixed their religious faith. They people from Babylon had brought their own religions with them, but they felt the need to worship Yahweh because, well, when they first got there.
He sent lions to kill a bunch of them and I'm serious. It's in chronicles.
But he's set or kings. That's in kings. Sends lions to kill a bunch of them, and so they say, maybe we should worship this God too.
And so they mix all of it together and that's where some of the hostility comes from. But, you know, give it several 100 years and there are political hostilities that arise between these 2 people.
And by the time of Jesus. As we saw, as we saw her say in verse. 9 or perhaps as the the the gospel writer says not sure whether it's and whether it should be in parentheses or not.
The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. That's the reason why.
Jesus goes to this place. Why does he go to this place?
The Samaritans think of themselves as Israelites.
They are those 10 northern tribes. That's where they think. Of themselves as coming from. That's what they emphasize.
Jews emphasize that Gentile aspect of who they are. The Jews When they think about the Samaritans, they emphasize the people coming from Babylon and from and from all these other cities.
But the Samaritans, when they think about it, they emphasize their Israelite. Background. So that's who they think they are.
What they don't like is Jews. And by that they don't mean Israelites. They mean people from the tribe of Judah.
So this is intertribal.
Animosity or hatred that's going on. It's not, you know, separate nations.
Because what they agree on
What they agree on, whether they're descended. From Judah or Benjamin. Or whether they're descended.
From Naftali or Ruben or Simeon. Or Manasseh or Ephraim or any of those.
What they can all agree on is that they're descended from Jacob.
Everybody involved in this conversation. Is descended from Jacob. And Jesus knows that. Jesus knows whatever differences we have.
They think of themselves as descended from Jacob. So he goes to the field.
That Jacob bought. And the field that Jacob gave who? The field that Jacob gave his son Joseph, why Joseph?
Joseph plays into it too because Whether they're right or not, I have no idea. And I don't know if it matters.
Whether they're right or not, they most strongly identify themselves. With the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.
Now partly that's because Ephraim and Manasseh were the really big tribes in the northern kingdom.
But they're also, they get called half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.
Because they're Joseph's signs. They're all thinking of themselves. Whatever their actual genetic, you know, they didn't have 23 in me.
So whatever their actual derivation is, think of themselves as being the household of Joseph. Jesus goes to the field that Jacob bought back in Genesis.
Gave to his son Joseph. And that's where he's going to meet the Samaritans.
He's going to meet him on their turf. He's going to meet them on territory that they're familiar with.
Territory that he can share with them.
Now, there's another thing that's important here, and I'm not going to be able to show you.
Chapter and verse, but this has to do with why does he go to this well? And I'm going to ask that, why does Jesus go to this well?
And like I say, I can't show you chapter and verse on this because it's not in the Bible.
This is from Samaritan tradition. What I'm about to tell you.
But there's there's an old, old legend about Jacob. That both both the Jews and the Samaritans had passed down.
It's not about this well in particular. But it is about Jacob at another well. Some of the language might sound familiar.
It's about Jacob going to another well. And And when he gets there, the people are hovering around the well, but they're waiting for everybody to show up.
This is how the story goes. If you're recognizing it already and you see differences, it's OK, this is legend.
When he gets there, they're waiting for everybody to show up and the reason they're waiting for everybody to show up at this well.
Because there's barely enough water in it. To kind of provide water for the whole community. That needs to use it.
So they wait for everybody to be there. They see how much water they're going to be able to get for the day.
And they try to divide that up as equitably as they can. And Jacob sees this and he says, oh man, this is.
Is no way to live. You're barely getting by. This is Awful. But when Jacob, because he's so great.
I told you it's legend. When Jacob goes to the well. And he rolls the stone off, you might recognize which well it is now.
But when he rolls the stone off and Jacob wants to draw water. The water rises. It's not just barely enough water down in the bottom of the well and they have to hope that they can, you know, tip the bucket on the side.
To get it to partially fill. No, the water rises all the way to the top. Of the well.
It rises. All the way up like a, like a wellspring. Overflowing the bounds.
That's how great Jacob was. And not just that day, OK, for as long as he stayed there among those people.
That well continued. To flow with that much water, giving them that much of the life giving water that they needed so badly.
And so Jacob is strongly associated with Wells in the Samaritan imagination. And Jesus wants to use that.
Jesus wants to talk about that. He's going to steer the conversation to that eventually. But he starts.
By showing up at the Samaritan Well. Near this Samaritan town in the Samaritan field.
That Jacob had given to Joseph. And that Jacob and his sons had used as she says. And he starts this whole This whole interaction with what sounds like.
A simple request.
He says, in verse 7, after the woman of Samaria came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.
Seems like a simple request.
But it's not. And she knows it's not a simple request. She knows that this is, this is loaded.
You can tell she knows because of how she responds. Look at verse 9. She says, How is it that you, a Jew?
Ask for a drink from me. A Samaritan woman. Because Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Now most of our Bibles put that last bit in parenthesis indicating that that's not what she said.
The, that's the Apostle John. Writing that to explain it for his audience who might not know it.
I'm not sure, I can perfectly well see that. In as being in her mouth, words that she said because She knows it.
She knows it just as well as anybody living in Judea. Samaria or Galilee would know it.
And it plays right into what she's saying. But it's really ultimately neither here nor there.
Why she says it. The point is, there is no way. He's going to drink her water.
Not if he's just a normal Jew.
Why is that?
She's a Samaritan one. First of all, she's a woman.
He's talking to her in public. You don't do that. Secondly, she's a Samaritan woman.
Jewish tradition said, or the Jewish rabbis. Said that a Samaritan woman was Always, permanently in a state of uncleanness.
And the kind of uncleanness that she was was or that she had. Was one that would be transmitted.
Transmitted through anything that she touched. Okay? Anything she touched like water jar. Like any cup, something that he might.
Drink from, like the water itself. Any of that would have become unclean when she touched it and it would have made anyone unclean who then touched it afterwards.
Ritual uncleanness that would have made Jesus according to according to Levittical law. Expanded and interpreted by the rabbis.
And then wildly applied to Samaritan women. Would have been understood to make him unfit for worship in the temple.
Unfit for proper worship. Now if you look through the New Testament, you'll find that Jesus doesn't.
Really seem to care too much about that. Jesus breaks those kinds of rules left and right. Jesus, in fact, flips those rules sometimes, completely on their head, which is beautiful.
But she doesn't know that yet. As far as she can tell, and I don't even know.
How exactly she can tell this. All she can tell is that here's some Jewish guy. Who's sitting here.
I don't know if he had, main tag or what? Hi, my name is Jesus, I'm Jewish.
But all she can tell is here's some Jewish guy. Asking her for water which he ought to know very well and she knows very well is going to make him unclean.
Why on earth would he do that? This is crazy.
So Jesus knows that. He knows that. What she, and so he responds to it.
He says, If you knew the gift of God, And who is it is that is saying to you, give me a drink.
You would have asked him. And he would have given you living water. So it sounds like maybe he didn't actually need that drink of water as bad as it sounded like.
It was just an opening line. He was just trying to. To steer the conversation. He was just trying to get it over.
To this subject matter.
But she, of course, doesn't understand quite what he's talking about. He's speaking spiritually.
And I'm sorry, but we don't have time to. Linger long on all the, Nate just looked at his watch.
We don't have any time. I'm sorry, but I've just looked at his watch. We don't have any time.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to keep going for a he's speaking spiritually.
She's thinking physically. That's all she's thinking about is the physical and that's not what he's talking about but she doesn't understand that.
So she says, well, Yeah, he's going to give me water. Right. Dude, that's a loose translation of.
Of how she says. Tighter translation. Sorry, sir. You have nothing to draw, I think her tone was dude.
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? This is because of that. Old, old story that they knew, because otherwise it's like, why is she bringing?
Jacob, this makes no sense. But no, it does make sense. Are you greater than our father Jacob that you don't even need to be able to reach way down into this 100 foot deep?
Well to get water, it'll just be right here at the top and you can just scoop it up and give it to people.
Is that what you think?
So, Jesus says to her.
In an answer that without a background of that story, you might kind of wonder. He's just changing the subject, but no he's not.
Jesus says 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.
So she says, are you greater than our father Jacob? Who made the water rise to the top of the well and he effectively says Actually, yeah.
I'm going to turn you into a spring of water. In which the water rises up. And not just to keep you alive, which is why you come out here at noon to the hottest part of the day.
To get water, no not just to keep you alive but to give you eternal life. That's why you'll never thirst again.
So. This is an out of the blue and his response isn't off topic. This goes right to the heart.
Of Samaritan identity to their identity as the children of Jacob. But she still misunderstands and she asks, it's like, OK, water that I'll never be thirsty again, yeah, thanks.
I think I'll. Sign me up. Then I won't have to come back here every day.
And so he says, you know what?
I'm going to have to steer this conversation a little bit because she's really hung up on the physical water.
And so after she says, yeah, give me that water. I'd love to have some of that.
He says, tell you what. Go get your husband and bring him back here. Which shocks her, No, that's not what shocks her.
She says, I don't have a husband. And he says, yeah, I know. You've had 5 and you're not married to the guy that you're living with now.
That's eye opening. That's what shocks are. That's eye opening. Right? Wait a minute.
How do you know that? I don't know who you are. You've never been here before.
How do you know my story? And her knee jerk reaction. And I think it's a knee jerk reaction.
But I think then it gets her mind going. Is I perceive that you are a prophet in verse 19.
I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. But you or better yaw because this is You plural.
She's not talking about Jesus. She's talking about Jews. Y'all say that that Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
But what's this business about a profit?
Like I say, I think initially it's probably just a knee-jerk reaction. This guy sees stuff, he reveals stuff.
Seems like a profit. But there's a little more going on. Once she says it, you know how that works in your own mind when you say something that that you didn't really think about, but then once you've said it, now you've got to think about it.
I hope that's happened. To all of you. I know what happens to me. Maybe it's just because I talk before I think sometimes.
But I think she did it here and then she gets to thinking. Now when I think about a prophet.
I think of Isaiah or or I think of Ezekiel, and so I named my son Ezekiel.
That's what I think of. You know, if you're If you're in the third and fourth grade Sunday school group and you've been doing, I guess you wouldn't be in here.
But the third and fourth graders who are downstairs, if they've been doing the the work sheets for black of a better term that Donna and Renee have been giving them on the minor profits.
They might think of Zephaniah or Haggai. Or Mica or somebody like that.
That is not who she is going to think of. Remember? The Samaritans don't use The profits.
The Samaritans don't use the histories. They don't read them. They think that they were apostate.
They only use 5 books of Moses. So when she thinks about a prophet. The last person that the Samaritans acknowledge as a prophet.
Was Moses.
That's the last person she's thinking of.
The next person that they expect as a prophet?
If we look in our Bibles They've got it diverse and a slightly different place, but they've got the same text.
The next person they're expecting. Is in Deuteronomy chapter 18.
Where God promises Israel. This is before the split. Promise made both to the tribes of Judah. And the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and all the others.
God promises that he will give them a prophet like Moses. Moses says he will raise up a prophet like me.
That's the next profit. They haven't seen another one yet as far as they're concerned.
They don't accept. The prophets that came up wandering into northern Israel to tell them stuff.
They don't think that they were true prophets. They're expecting a profit like Moses.
So she may not have been thinking it when she said it. But now that she's said it She's got to be wondering, See, if he's a prophet.
Is he a prophet like Moses?
I think he wanted her to think that. I think he wasn't actually trying to get her to bring her husband back.
Or her boyfriend back. He wasn't getting her to go find one of her exes and bring him back.
That wasn't the point. The point was Get her to think about. This question is he the prophet like Moses?
And then. He leads her further because she asks a theological question. She's like, you know, Should we worship here on Mount Gerizim, like the Samaritan?
Fathers have said or are the Jews right that we would worship in Jerusalem? She is trying to set this up in opposition.
She's kind of trying to deflect, I think. And Jesus doesn't let her. He says, you know what?
It's not going to matter.
His ultimate answer is Location's not going to matter. God is seeking those who will worship in spirit and truth.
But since she's brought worship into it, since she's brought, he wasn't going to make her go there, but since she's gone there.
He does have to tell her also. Yeah, you know what? Turns out Tribo Juda was right.
From a manasa. And their emphasis on building a temple on Mount Gerzim because They did in history.
The Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim. And he says, yeah, you know, they were wrong.
The Samaritans worship what they don't know. They want to worship. Right? And that's good.
Now, at the beginning. Was it all mixed and did the should the people have known better? Probably.
But by this point, 700 and some years later, almost 800 years later, 1,000 years depending on when you want to start it.
At this point, they want to worship correctly. They want to worship Yahweh. But they don't know.
And he tells her that the Jews worship what they do know. And salvation begins with the Jews. But he doesn't have it stopped there.
He's extending that.
So I'm not, when I say this, when I say he keeps making all these concessions, he goes to their place.
He wants to talk about Joseph. He lets her think about him in terms of the Samaritan expectation of a prophet like Moses.
When I say he's, he's doing all these things to, to go to the Samaritan point.
Instead of the Judaism that is closer to the truth. I'm not trying to relativize.
Jesus doesn't relativize. When it comes to this question of worship, He says, nope.
That is how it's supposed to be. That was the right answer. But. An hour's coming and now is.
When God will be seeking people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that's what's going to matter.
He's telling her he's going, that God is going. To fix this.
This has been right. Both will be wrong. And it will be the way it really ought to be.
And so her response to this, this idea. Of reestablishing or establishing proper worship.
Comes here.
Sorry, I'm scanning down.
Comes in verse 25. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.
When he comes, he will tell us all things. Now why does she go here? And also, Incidentally, what does a good Samaritan girl know about a messiah?
Right? Messiah is a Jewish term.
Messiah is a royal term. They didn't like King David. Messiah is a descendant of the tribe of Judah in the house of David who's to rule as a king.
To kick out the Romans, hopefully, to kick out somebody. You know, the Jews of the time are hoping it's the Romans, you know, we want Messiah to come and throw the Romans out and re-establish the kingdom.
None of that comes from later Old Testament. None of that comes from the Pentateuch. Those are all Jewish ideas.
Was a good Samaritan girl know or think or hope for? About a messiah. I think this is a translation.
I think what she said was the the word Tahab.
Because the Tahab was the Samaritan. Parallel to the Messiah. There are what we would call Messianic prophecies and expectations that are in the Pentateuch.
They don't use the word Messiah, right? He's not the anointed one, which is what Messiah means.
But they are expecting something. They're expecting a profit like Moses. They're expecting him, like Moses.
To establish or re-establish proper worship. Isn't that what Moses did in Exodus?
Moses establishes proper worship of the one true God. He has the design for the tabernacle and the altar and all the things that are associated with it.
So when they're expecting a prophet like Moses, they're expecting him. To to re-establish proper worship.
Just like Jesus talked about. They're expecting him to be the one who returns or the one who restores.
That's what the word means. So those are the Messianic prophecies that the Samaritan people have.
Those are the ones that they understand. One of the ways that we frequently criticize Judaism of the time of Jesus criticized some of his disciples, in fact.
Is that they're so hung up on this political revolution. That they think the Messiah is going to start.
That they've forgotten about all this other stuff. Well. The Samaritans didn't have.
The political stuff. They didn't have the the royal, they didn't have the revolution. All they had was some of the other stuff.
That doesn't mean it's wrong. It's not complete. But it's not wrong.
And so Jesus tells her. Shockingly. Hi, yep, that's me. I'm him.
But he tells her even more beautifully than that. And I don't know if she caught it.
I really don't. But.
Inverse, let's say, 25 was where she, so verse 26, Jesus said to her, in the ESV, I who speak to you and he.
That's not quite the word order. In. In Greek. I don't think it's the word order in the Aramaic that they would have been speaking to each other.
And the Greek, it's Egoimi.
I think that's what effectively what the Aramaic would have been. Ruth, you'll be glad to know that Luther and the Germans at least get pretty close on the word order.
It's II am. The one speaking to you. I think.
He's using the exact same language. That God used, that he used. Back in Exodus chapter 3 at the burning bush.
When Moses says, What should I tell him this God that's sending me? What's his name?
What am I supposed to tell him? And God says, I am. Tell them that I am sent you.
Jesus is using the same language here. Now honestly, I'd be kind of surprised if she called it, because I think at this point her brain's on fire.
I think Jesus said it that way. I think John preserves it for us. That way so that we can catch it and see that.
He is accepting that identity as the messiah that the Samaritans were. Expecting and at the same time he's throwing in there for anybody that can notice it.
A divine claim.
So in response to all this, she rushes back down into town. She's not even 100% sure.
Like I say, I think her brain's on fire and she's just trying to figure out what's going on.
She rushes down into town. And she says, you've all got to come back. Go back to the well, there's this guy.
Could he be the Messiah? Could he be the Tahab? Could he be the prophet like Moses?
The form of her question. Is almost more like he, he couldn't be the Ta Hub, could he?
It's almost looking for a no answer. She is not. 100% sure. But here's what she is.
She is going to tell what she knows.
What she is 100% sure of. She is going to spread. She's not going to wait.
Until she's got a complete theological education. She's not going to wait till she straightens out.
So what exactly did you mean by living water? I mean are we just talking about spring water or running water or are you talking about something like manifest?
She's not going to wait for any of that. She takes what she's got. And she goes.
And in response. You can ask why. But in response, people of the town. She goes to the man of the town and says, come, the men of the town.
Say, I'll go check them out. Now like I say, I don't know why they did that.
Why would you listen to this woman? She's had 5 husbands. She's shacking up with some guy.
She isn't even, I skipped over this part, this is one that. I didn't have time for, but she's coming at noon to draw water.
She's not even welcome to go draw water with the rest of the women from the village. Nobody goes to draw water at noon.
It is hot out there. ? So that's who's coming to tell them, and yet they go
Why do they go? I don't know. I don't care. I don't think she cared.
Doesn't matter. The Holy Spirit can use anybody.
And so, that brings me to my application. So yeah, I'm only 15 min long and I'm finally getting to the application.
I have 3 of them though, sorry.
Here's the first one. Has been the first one. She didn't wait. She took what she had.
And she went. People will be more likely. And so this is my advice to you, believers.
I don't care where you are. I mean, I do. Right, I do care where you are, but for purposes of this.
Admonition, I don't care where you are in your spiritual walk. I don't care how much you know.
She didn't know much. I encourage you to model this woman. Learn, study, do all those things.
But don't wait until you've done those things.
People are going to be more likely to come to Christ. If he's pointed out to them right now.
Then they will if you wait. Until you've got every eye dotted in every T crossed. Just tell them what you do know.
And if they ask you something that you don't know, say, I don't know. Ask him, ask Jesus when you get there, or ask somebody else who knows more.
But you've got to, you've got to meet this guy.
That's my first. The second one is the one that I've actually probably spent the most time on this morning.
And that is model of Jesus in this story.
Jesus wanted to reach Samaria. Because he wanted to start bringing those. Israelites. Very marginalized Israelites.
Maybe, maybe. Half breeder, quarter breed as they would have been insulted at the time.
Israelites but Jesus wanted to bring those Israelites back into a relationship with the father. Back into the family of God.
And to do that, he didn't start by saying, okay, so we need to go and hash through the last 800 years of history and make sure you understand all the places that you were wrong and all the places that Judah was right and we need to get all of your theology in line.
So just like I'm encouraging you, go share him. Even before you've got everything perfect.
Jesus didn't worry about trying to get their theology perfect. He didn't make them come down to Jerusalem and bow the knee.
And say, oh yeah, we should have been in Jerusalem all that time. Before he told them about.
Coming age in which worship would be in spirit and truth. He didn't do that.
We should do the same. Enough obstacles for people. Meet them on their ground. Don't know any Samaritans.
Sorry, Zeke, I told you I wouldn't hit the microphone. But I don't know any Samaritans personally.
Most of them still live within A Sabbath day's walking distance of Mount Guerrazine.
Because it's very difficult. To observe the marathon faith if you're farther away from Mount Gerizim than that.
So I've never met one that I know of.
But I know plenty of people. Aren't comfortable around Christians just like she wouldn't have been comfortable around Jews.
I know plenty of people. Who wouldn't be comfortable. Cracking open the scriptures and having a discussion about the intricacies of this, that or the other thing.
I shouldn't wait. Meet them on their ground. Go to their Jacobs well.
Use what they do understand, use the whatever little scrap of truth is in it. To start that conversation.
Ask them for a drink of water. I mean, you can do that literally. I mean, it metaphorically, but.
You get the point, start that conversation. Somewhere that it can move forward and go somewhere.
The last application I have is this. And it's for anybody here. Who doesn't follow Christ?
Who's maybe that person who's not entirely comfortable here. Because of all these huii toty Christians.
Who think they're so special. And they think you're so bad and evil and whatever they think you are.
Or maybe you think that about yourself. Maybe you think, you know, I have done. A lot of things.
Pad a lot of fun! But I don't think there's any salvation for me.
I don't think there's anything he can do with me. Yeah, I've, I've had my fun now and I'll take my licks later.
You know, I doubt if you've had 5 husbands. And he still went to her. And even if you have, even if you actually managed to exceed.
This woman's, Lifestyle.
Jesus doesn't care.
Not only did he go to that village
To talk to her.
He went to that village to use her to let her be. His spokesman.
He wants you.
And he doesn't care.
So if that's you. Talk to somebody. Go to Jesus. Let somebody here try to find the least weighty toy that you can.
Let's somebody here. Unless you like Q. 20, then come find me.
But find somebody. Who can tell you more about this man.
Because he's who you need.
Let's pray.
Father. We thank you for your love to us. We thank you that you sent your son.
We thank you for his love.
That having been sent.
He went to this village.
He went looking for these people.
Who had been separated from you for so long.
And he sought to draw them in. And he did it.
Father, we pray for. For this place. That we would be a well springing up of living water.
We pray for the the town here and the towns that surround us.
That your message would go to them. That we would take that to them.
If they're comfortable inside a church that they would come here to find it. K you out, but mostly, Father, we pray that like these Samaritan people.
That they would recognize that your son is the savior of the world.
We pray these things and His precious name. Amen.