← ArchiveSunday, May 6, 2018DateMay 6, 2018Speaker—TextJohn 4Passages in this sermonJohn 45:39Philippians 220:10John 4:1024:49TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.0:30I'm sorry.1:00I'm a pastor of The Well, a brand new church in Nashua, New Hampshire.1:29How many people have been to New Hampshire? Oh yeah, just a few of you. That's fantastic. Well, we got something in common, you and me, the rest of the room really, because I have not been to Alabama. This is, this is not like familiar territory for me at all. In fact, I grew up most of my life in the Northeast. I really have had no interaction with the deep South. So you're going to have to be patient with me, okay, because all these Southern actions are throwing me just a little bit.1:59But really glad to be here today. I have learned that there are some differences between New Hampshire and here. So for one, I think y'all are, did I say that right, y'all? All right, cool. I think, yeah, you guys clapping for me, that's fantastic. I think you guys are like the sweetest people on planet Earth. I got to the airport yesterday and Josh and Dan met me and they just gave me this huge embrace, just sweetest people. When I got back to my hotel room, there was like this gift basket full of all sorts of goodies.2:27Like, who does that? You know, it's like super sweet. And like everybody has just been so friendly. I have a theory on why. I think it's probably all the sweet tea that you guys drink. It's making you guys so sweet. That's one difference. You don't get as many sweet people up in the Northeast. I love them. They're my home people, okay? I love them, but they're not quite as sweet. They can learn a lot from you guys. Second thing I learned is that there's a big difference in how we use the term barbecue. Yeah, you know where I'm going with this.2:59We had a couple of mission teams coming up last summer to help us serve the city in a lot of different ways. And I said, yeah, we're going to throw a block party, and we want you guys to help us with the barbecue. And they're like, yeah, sweet. We love barbecue. What kind of meat are you smoking? I'm like, no, no, no. This is just burgers and dogs. They're like, bro, that's not barbecue. You're like, you don't understand. It's a whole different animal. And I'm like, okay, I got a lot to learn there, too. We're not as sophisticated as you guys are with the whole meat thing.3:27Last thing I learned is that I'm from the New England Patriots territory. We love our pro football up there. And I hear that you guys are not into football down here all that much. Is that right? All right. I just got a lot of haters in that moment there. All right. Football's a lot bigger down here for sure. And we don't even recognize college sports at all up there. But I realized, too, that with some of the differences, sometimes there can be a little bit of awkwardness. Like, I got a mentor of mine who is from the Deep South.3:57He'd been mentoring me for the last eight years. And I looked at him at one point years ago. And I said, man, you look exhausted. Like, how are you? He said, man, I'm tired. I said, I don't know if there's a translation gap. But, like, you mean tarred and feathered kind of tarred? Or, like, what are you talking about? And he goes, no, no, no. I am exhausted. I'm like, oh, tired. Oh, I got you. I got you. Okay. Now, like, there's some accent differences for sure.4:26But in the Northeast, we don't know what to do with our R's and our A's. That's just true. Like, we put our R's where our A's are supposed to be and our A's where our R's are supposed to be. That's just how it is. So, like, a conversation between a mom and a kid in the car would probably go something like this. Mommy, are we there yet? And Mommy said, nah, Daddy's just got to go park the other car. And, like, some of you were like, man, I don't even know what he's speaking. Like, what language he's speaking. So, there's some translation gaps.4:55Now, here's why I mentioned all this today. Jesus, as you guys saw, he has commissioned us. To bridge some of the gaps between God and people who are far from him. But there are moments where that just gets awkward. Because there's a significant amount of barriers that we have to overcome sometimes to reach people that are far from God. There's a lot of translation gaps. And we're going to look at something today that's going to show us not only how we are to bridge some of those gaps in the lives of people who are far from God,5:19but the gaps that God bridged for us. And, yeah, it got awkward for God. And yet, that didn't stop him. We're all here today because he did some significant, awkward bridge-gapping work. So, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open this up to John chapter 4. That's where we're going to be hanging out today. For those of you who have been in the church maybe all your life, this could be a familiar passage to you.5:44But my prayer is that we all approach this with fresh eyes. Because I think what it does is it examines our hearts in a way that maybe few of us have examined before. And maybe for some of you in this room, church is not a familiar place. And maybe you might be kicking the tires on this whole faith thing. Not sure what you think about it. Man, I'm glad you're here. I'm especially glad you're here. Because what I want to do is I want to clarify something about Jesus and what he's all about that maybe you haven't heard before.6:11We're going to take a look at three things as we look at this passage. We're going to look at the location of what Jesus was all about, where he tended to spend his time. Where did he operate? We're going to look at the focus of Jesus' mission. What was he all about? What made him tick? And then finally, what were the results of Jesus' mission? So, that's where we're going to be. Let me pray for us real quick and we'll read together in John chapter 4. Jesus, we're just grateful to be here.6:43God, as I examine my life and where I've been and what you had to do to get a hold of my attention, it takes my breath away. That you would care about me. God, I don't know where everybody is in this room today. But my guess is that you've got something special to say to every single one of us. My guess is all of us come in with regrets.7:12All of us come in with shame. All of us come in with guilt. But you want to cut through all of that. And you want to show us that you've had us on your mind and your heart for eternity. God, let that change us. That's my prayer today in Jesus' name. Amen. John chapter 4. Here we go. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John.7:38Although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples. He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. Now, here's one of the first things that we notice about Jesus that makes him so different from any other people that we would know. Jesus is getting the following. He's got more disciples than some of the people who were the religious elite at the time. And the Pharisees at this point, they're starting to take notice.8:07I mean, if it was the 21st century, his Twitter account would be blowing up. Instagram would be off the chart. Like, there would be so many people gathering around him. And if he was anyone like us, we'd be like, all right, we've got to bust out the capital campaign. We need to build a building. Like, we need to start getting structure and staff. And, I mean, how can we blow this thing up? How can we get as many people together as possible? And the Pharisees are starting to get super jealous. But that's not what Jesus does. Jesus' response?8:37Jesus' response? He leaves. He gets out of town. He's in Jerusalem, the religious center for the Jewish people. And after getting a ton of followers, he takes a hike. Why? Well, he's got something special. See, already Jesus is different here. Verse 5. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Now Joseph's well was there, so Jesus, weird as he was from the journey, was sitting beside the well.9:02And it was the sixth hour. 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. You've got to understand something here.9:33Jesus is about to have a conversation with a woman that should never, ever have happened. There's no way that this conversation should ever have taken place. Because the barriers that stood between Jesus and this woman were off the chart. Now, I'm going to work through a number of barriers that Jesus had to get through. First one we have to examine is that there was a serious ethnic barrier. Jews and Samaritans did not cohabitate.10:02They did not exist together. And here's what happened. So, hundreds and hundreds of years earlier, in the nation of Israel, there was two kingdoms that split apart at one point. Becoming the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And in the northern kingdom, they had no dealings with the southern kingdom for all sorts of political reasons. But in 722 BC, the nation of Assyria attacked the northern nation of Israel. And at that time, totally conquered that nation, that upper half of the Israelites.10:29And one of the tactics that the Assyrians had to totally destroy the ethnic identity and the uniqueness that made the people, what made those people unique, was actually to disperse them throughout the entire empire so that they would lose their cultural identity. You just scattered them all over the place. And that's what they did with the nation, the northern nation of Israel. The interesting thing about that is that the northern nation of Israel then started intermarrying with all the other peoples around them.10:57And so, they become kind of a half-blood people. The southern nation didn't like that very much, so they called them these half-bloods, which eventually became the name Samaritans. And they just totally disassociated with each other. And they had all sorts of differences that built up these walls between them and each other. So, in fact, it got so nasty that they would send people from the southern kingdom of Jews up to the Samaritans to go pillage some of their towns.11:22They would destroy some of their places of worship and even kill them as they went along the road traveling from place to place. It was just, it was hostile. So, Jews and Samaritans, massive barrier. There's no way that Jesus should have been interacting with this woman because of that. But also, there was religious and theological barriers. You see, as these people separated, they also had two completely separate places of worship.11:51The Jews in the southern kingdom said, man, we've got to have the sacrificial place right here in Jerusalem. And the Samaritans says, man, we're not going to interact with them anymore, so we've got to create our own place of sacrifice. And so, they, 400 B.C., they identified a mountain known as Mount Gerizim. This is where they're going to have their sacrifices. And they're going to have their own priest line. Jews are going to have their own priest line. Our priest line is legitimate. Your priest line is not legitimate.12:20The Samaritans believed that the first five books of the Bible were the only authoritative books. And the Israelites, the Jews in the southern kingdom, said, no, no, no, it's the first five books of the Bible, but it's also the writings and the prophets. And they disagreed, and they battled and disagreed. And, I mean, there was just massive tension between the two. They had ethnic barriers. They had theological and religious barriers. But particularly for this woman, there were also other incredible barriers. For one, there was a gender barrier.12:50Ladies, you're not going to like this very much, but this is how it was in the first century. A woman's testimony was not admissible in a court of law in the first century because women were deemed inferior to men. That's just how it was. I'm not saying it's right. I got three daughters of mine. I got a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old. My house is absolutely crazy. But I love them to death, and I can't wait to see what God's going to do in their life. People didn't see women that way back in the first century. In fact, it was scandalous for a rabbi in the first century to hang out with a woman in public,13:20to talk with her in public. Jesus, setting himself up as a rabbi, was setting himself up for an incredibly scandalous moment. That if they had all sorts of news outlets, it would have been on every front page back then. That's how scandalous it would have been. Jewish leaders even said, particularly of Samaritan women, this is what they wrote. All daughters of the Samaritans are menstruants from the cradle,13:49meaning that these are the most unclean people on planet Earth. You cannot go near them. You're going to be defiled. You will not be approachable before God. Massive barriers. But the last one that we have to understand is that there was a social barrier. How do we understand this? Well, see, this woman, a woman from Samaria, came to draw water, and she came at the sixth hour, it says in verse six, at the very end.14:15The sixth hour was noon. Nobody drew water at noontime. Why? Because you'd need water for all your household chores for the day. That's what you used for cleaning. That's what you used for cooking. That's what you used for really everything. And so you'd come at the beginning of the day, not when it was super hot, but at the beginning, right before you had your whole day. The well at the time was really the target for women that it is today. Like that's where women would go to gossip. That's where they go to show off their kids.14:45That's where they go to be like, you know, hey, she's wearing a toga. That's a little bit too low cut, you know? You know, that's where they'd be like analyzing their sandals. Like, oh, cute. That's so cute. You know, like that's where they'd go. They'd go to the well. And that's like, this was the place. But they all went at the beginning of the day, not noontime. So why is she going at noon? She had been rejected by her own culture. You see, this woman's got a past. She's got a history.15:16She made some mistakes. And we find out later that, man, her relational history is pretty broken. She'd been married five times. And the guy that she's with right now is not even her husband. Now, we in the 21st century see that as scandalous. Can you imagine what that was like in the first century? Nobody wanted to hang out with this lady. Nobody, except one, Jesus. See, Jesus knew to reach people that nobody's reaching, you got to go where no one's going.15:46To reach people nobody's reaching, you have to go where no one's going. This is wild. But it actually says in verse four that he had to pass through Samaria. Is that true? You can go ahead and throw that map up on the screen. It's not true at a map level. You see, they had an alternate route. Jews would actually take a side route to the east to pass through, to pass around the area of Samaria so that they wouldn't have to interact with Samaritans. Jesus didn't have to go straight through Samaria.16:16There was a well-worn route that most Jews took. He didn't have to, and yet he did. Why? Because he knew she was going to be there. And he had to find her. He had to talk to her. Why? I don't know how to say this strong enough. Every single person in this world matters.16:42Every single person in this world matters. There's not a human on planet Earth that doesn't matter more or less to God than any other one. I don't care what your past has been. I don't care how many times you've been to church or how many times you have not been to church. There's no person that is more or less approved in God's eyes based on what they've done. God loves every single person. And this person had a horrible past, and yet Jesus had to find her.17:10He had a destination with her, a conversation that had to happen, because everyone matters. And you have to hear this. If we're going to reach people, we cannot focus on their problems. We've got to focus on the person. The other day, I was getting oil from my van, and I stopped at an Advanced Auto Parts in Nashville, New Hampshire. And it didn't take me long to interact with one of the customers who was there. His name is Kyle.17:40And it hit me pretty quickly. He and I are a little different. He had tats all over his body. He had a couple of piercings through his nose and through his ears. It was pretty clear that he had a bit of a rough edge to him. His words were a little less than clean. He had massive gauges in his ears. This dude is just a little different. I mean, really, the most offensive thing about me is maybe the glare that comes off of my Chrome Dome, you know. Just don't get too close, okay. But we're interacting. We're talking. And at one point, I'm just, I'm getting the sense that, man, he's new to Nashua.18:10And so we're talking a little bit about where he came from and where he is now. And sweetest guy. We just had this awesome interaction. I just felt compelled. I'm like, man, I don't know what you think about church. But we started a church about a year and a half ago for people who don't consider themselves religious. And he's like, no way. I'm not religious. And I'm like, awesome. Let's talk. So at that point, he actually starts telling me about some of his spiritual interests.18:39And he's like, yeah, I love science. I just don't know how that fits in with faith. And I'm pretty sure that there are aliens somewhere in outer space. And I'm really fascinated by that. I really want to talk. I'm like, great, let's talk. You know? So he gave me his number. And like for the past week and a half, we've been dialing up back and forth and setting up a time where he and I are going to chat. But I tell you what, I had a choice to make when I looked at him. I had a choice. Am I going to look at his issues?19:09Am I going to look at the problems that present themselves at the surface level? Or am I going to see a person? If you are going to reach people no one's reaching, you got to go where no one's going. Now, Jesus also had to get honest with himself. Because all the external barriers that were there, the religious, the social, the gender, I mean, you name it, there were also internal barriers that Jesus had to overcome. Just think about this for a second. Who is Jesus?19:39He's a son of God. He's a son of God in human flesh. Talk about uncomfortable. Man, he left the riches of heaven and eternity with this perfect relationship that he had with God the Father in just paradise. He left that to become a little baby inside a cradle and to take on human experience. Man, that's uncomfortable. The Apostle Paul put it this way in Philippians chapter 2.20:10He said, Man, I've heard this before with other believers. Man, I'll share my faith, but God's got to open that door for me. You know, he's got to present that to me.20:39He's got to give it to me. Jesus made that happen. Jesus took that initiative. Man, he met her on her turf. And it was really uncomfortable. He had to overcome all sorts of barriers in order to reach her where she is. My neighbor John, who lives just next door to me, when we first moved into the neighborhood, it was pretty clear when he found out that we were starting a church that he was not interested. And not interested not just in church, but not interested in me.21:09Because, man, like anybody who's starting a religious thing must be part of a cult, don't want anything to do with him. It was a long time before we got John to come to our church. But it did not happen because I shoved four spiritual laws down his throat. It didn't happen because I said, you got to come, you got to come, you got to come. It happened when I started meeting him on his turf. When I jumped into his world. And when I started inviting him to things that were non-threatening.21:37He started joining a soccer team with me. We started hanging out at different places in the community. And it wasn't until months and months and months into it that he actually gave Easter Sunday a shot. Now him and his whole family have come multiple times now. And they're hearing the gospel for the first time in their life. But it doesn't happen until we start meeting them on their turf. Yeah, that gets uncomfortable. Oh my goodness, it gets uncomfortable. Embrace it.22:06Embrace it. Jesus embraced it for us. He embraced it for us. And so for us, and maybe, let me just give you a window into my church. I said from the very beginning when we started this thing, that we were going to have a church that meets well beyond the four walls that we meet in on a Sunday morning. We have to. Because here's the reality. I don't know if you understand some of the stats that happen in the Northeast. I grew up in New Hampshire, but didn't know this until late high school, college. We live in New Hampshire in the second least religious area of the whole country.22:33The second most post-Christian area of the nation. Most of the people that we interact with on a daily basis do not know Jesus. And they're not interested in organized religion whatsoever. We were interacting with someone just the other day when we were picking up the car here. It was just yesterday. And over the counter, we were having this conversation with a woman who's not going to church. But you got the sense that she felt guilty about not going to church. That's kind of the starting place here. That's not the starting place in New Hampshire.23:03The starting place in New Hampshire is, why would I go to church? That makes no sense. You know, you're skeptical at best towards organized religion, and so you just don't go. And so I said, man, even before we open our doors on a Sunday morning, we've got to have a presence in the community. And so we chose for moment one, we're going to partner with the Parks and Rec. We're going to join them in some of the events that they're pulling off in the community and just build relationships as we serve them. We're going to come alongside the local elementary school that where 82% of the kids are under the poverty line.23:29We're going to give them school supplies. We're going to give them backpacks. We're going to serve at some of their events. And it got to the point where the principal of the school actually invited us as a church, after all those gifts and service, to set up a table at their open house. Who does that? I don't know schools around the country right now that are opening the doors for a church, but I tell you what, it didn't happen because we said, hey, you got to come. It said, it happened because we got to go. We got to go.23:59We got to meet them on their turf. And you have to understand right now, Jesus did this and he didn't do it just for her. He did it for every single one of us in this room. He left the privilege and the beauty of heaven, put himself in human flesh and nailed himself to a cross to take our burden, to take our punishment, to substitute himself in our place so that we could have paradise forever. Man, can we knock on a neighbor's door?24:29Come on now. To partner with God, we've got to see people, not problems. We have to. Now, what does Jesus' conversation show us about his real desire for her? He overcame all those barriers, but now he has something for her. So, let's continue. John chapter 4, verse 10. This is what Jesus says. He's like, man, why are you asking for me for a drink? We don't hang out with each other. Verse 10. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that it's saying to you,24:56give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. And the woman said to him, sir, we've got 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. In other words, she's saying, who do you think you are? Living water? Give me a break.25:25Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said, sir, give me this water. Show me so that I'll not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water again.25:54Show me. You say you got something here. I'm coming to draw water here every single day. You say you got something that can trump that? Show me. And so it looks in this moment like Jesus takes a hard left. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I don't have a husband. You can almost hear her say, what?26:22We're talking about water. Why did you ask me to go get my husband? Because Jesus knew something she didn't know. Jesus said to her, you're right in saying I have no husband. For you have had five. And the one you now have is not your husband. What you said is quite true. I mean, picture that for a second. You're meeting a random guy outside and you're having this conversation. You think he's a little bit crazy.26:51And crazy for interacting with you in the first place. But crazy in what he's saying. And all of a sudden he says something that is so personal and so right on that you wanted nobody, nobody to know. He calls it out. She said, sir, I perceive you're a prophet. Yeah, man, you read my life. So here's the crazy thing. To partner with God, you've got to see people, not projects, people, not problems.27:21But you've also got to target something so much more than behavior modification. You've got to start seeing something so much deeper. You've got to target the heart. Because this is where Jesus goes with this woman. Why does he bring up this whole husband thing? It's because he's revealing something in her life that for her has become what she has been white knuckling. This is where she's been drawing her meaning and her identity, her significance in life.27:48It's all been found in men and it has not gone well. She's gone from guy to guy to guy to guy. And this is where she's thinking, this is where I'm going to find my life. And it's torn her apart. And the guy she's living with right now is not even her husband. Jesus goes straight for the heart. He said, you've got to understand, I'm offering something to you that is so much greater than anything that you've ever went after. Your entire life.28:17But we've got to get at the root of the issue here. And it's not behavior modification. He's not, he doesn't continue and say, man, you've got to get right with a dude somewhere. You know, you've got to find the right guy. You've got to settle down. You've got to have kids. You've got to just make sure that your behavior is just good. Jesus doesn't go there. In fact, this is where he goes. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming. Because she started picking a fight. She said, sir, I perceive your prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. But you say that in Jerusalem, that's the place where we ought to worship.28:46She starts picking a theological fight. She's like, quickly, let's please change the subject. I don't want to talk about this. And Jesus doesn't let her go. He said, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. Verse 22. You worship what you don't know. We worship what we do know. For salvation is from the Jews. He says, man, let me drop truth on you. You've got to understand true. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worship will worship the Father in spirit and truth.29:11It's going to dig right into your heart. God is seeking such people to worship him. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. And the woman said to him, I know the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. And when he comes, he'll tell us all these things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Whoa. Can you imagine the tension in that moment? Jesus goes straight for the heart.29:42And here's the scary thing. Here's, this is, and we got, we just got to get honest with ourselves about this. You can say and do all the right things in life and still be far from God. You can say and do all the right things in life. You can have your life all put together and everything on the outside looking great. And yet you can still be far, far from God. Years ago, I came across a quote from an agnostic philosopher that has stuck with me ever since. Because what he did is he really pried back the human heart in a way that I hadn't really seen it before.30:10This is not a man of faith, but I thought this was just so intriguing. His name is David Foster Wallace. And he spoke this over a commencement group that was just graduating. And it really was just honest with him. And we got to be honest about it too. This is not a believer. This is what he said. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshiping. This is wild. Everybody worships. The only choice is what we get to worship.30:40And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if that's where you tap real meaning in life, then you'll never have enough. Boy, isn't that true? Man, what keeps you up at night? Are you worrying about money? You'll never have enough. Never feel you have enough. That's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you'll always feel ugly. And when time and age starts showing, you'll die a million deaths before they plant you.31:10Worship power, and you'll feel weak and afraid, and you'll need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Man, you know people like that? Is that you? Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, and you'll end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Guys, this is not about behavior management. Jesus is not out to just make sure that you have all your ducks in a row. He's going after your heart.31:39What are you worshiping? You can show up on a Sunday morning all you want, but man, if you're tapping your meaning and your significance out of your wealth or your beauty or power, something else has gripped your heart. And the reality is it's going to disintegrate your life until you address that issue. And Jesus is saying, you can go back and back and back and back to that, but the cup is going to come dry. You're going to come back to it again and again, and the cup is going to be empty. You're going to have to refill it and refill it and refill it and refill it.32:09I want to give you something that you'll never have to refill ever, ever, ever, ever again. Living water. He wants to change your life. How do you do this? Now, like for some of us, if we're honest about this, like we're hearing this and we're thinking, man, I know some of these things that are disintegrating my life. I know I've been gripping power and I know that I'm trying to exercise that over other people because I feel like I'm in control and my life is safe when I have power. I know that I've been living for beauty because I look at myself way too much in the mirror.32:37I'm so scared about what other people think about me. I'll do anything to win the approval of other people. And I know that it's tearing me apart on the inside. What do you do when you're in that place? Here's the truth. You cannot just dispossess your human heart over one thing and leave it empty. You've got to replace that desire with something so much greater. I love this. This has changed my life.33:07This quote, Thomas Chalmers, he was like a 16th century preacher. He put it this way. The most effective way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away upon a desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring. You've got to look for something that's greater. Replace that power. Replace that need for approval. Replace your eagerness for beauty. He says, such is the grasping tendency of the human heart that it must have something to cling to.33:35It's got to have something. The only way to dispossess it from an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. We know no other way to keep the love of the world out of our hearts than to keep in our hearts the love of God. Man, are you drinking living water today? Are you drinking some stale water that you're going to have to go to again and again and again?34:01Man, I tell you what. It's not worth it to keep fighting for something that you're going to have to go back to and back to and back to again. That's what addiction is. It's not worth it. But when you've dispossessed your heart and you've understood the love of Jesus and how powerful that is and how he can set you free because of all that he's done for you on the cross, your life takes a whole new shape and a whole new purpose.34:26This is wild, okay? So you've got to take a look at the last part of this story with me because in it, what we do is we contrast and compare the disciples and this woman. A woman who is the least likely person to follow God becomes the one that Jesus uses in the most powerful way. And the disciples who were the least likely to be used by God because they were with Jesus all day, all night, all the time, man, they didn't get it. Check this out. Verse 27.34:56Verse 27. Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman. I mean, you can imagine like their mouths were agape, their jaws dropped to the floor. What is he doing? Whoa. But no one said, what do you seek? Why are you talking with her? And like, man, this is just a side note. But when someone's upset with you, like they usually don't share it, you know, they just kind of keep it to themselves and silently judge. All right. That's what they're doing. A woman left her jar and went into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?35:26This woman drew water at noon. She didn't want to have an interaction with anybody. And look what happened in her life. Jesus changed her and now she ran to what was once the scariest thing that she could have embraced. She told everybody because rescued people help rescue people. When you understand the depth of your sin and how bad your condition was between you and God35:52and what he's done to redeem you and save you, you can't help it anymore. You've got to share this with other people. I mean, it's like that dating couple, that engaged couple that just can't wait to get married. And they're just kind of like, ooh-ing and aah-ing over each other. And like, all they do is talk about each other. And all they talk about is this wedding and it's just goopy and nobody wants to be around them. Like, man, that's what she's doing at this moment because she found something that is so great and it's replaced her former affection and it's changed her life.36:21Everything about her life is different now because she found Jesus. Rescued people help rescue people. The disciples are not ready to do it because they're just in it to consume. They went to go get food and they come back and they're like, I don't get it, Jesus. Her life is changed. My question for all of you today is just this. Do you know Jesus?36:51Do you know the real Jesus? Do you know what he wants to do in your life? Do you know that there's satisfaction to be had every moment of every day? That no matter what life throws your way, you can have confidence in the King of Kings who has prepared a place for you that will never fade, spoil, or perish because of what he has done for you. It's a done deal. 2,000 years ago, he died on the cross. He rose from the grave. And when we put our trust and our faith in him, it is changed.37:20That's the hope we have in Christ. That's that living water that we'll never have to refill again. And man, when you embrace that, he's now given us the freedom to go give our life away for the sake of other people. This is the hope of the gospel. And the wild thing is that when we embrace that and we start offering that living water to other people, their life will change too.37:50That's the privilege that we have as believers. That when we partner with God, lives will change. Yeah, I live in the second least religious area of the country. Yeah, more people are not going to church than ever before. But I believe the best days in New Hampshire are yet ahead. Because the hope of Jesus Christ, he said his harvest is plentiful. It's just the workers that are few. We just need to get some more people involved in the game to believe what Jesus has done for them so that we can share with the whole world the fact that there is life-transforming power in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I believe that with all my heart.38:19And I will spend my every waking minute to see that happen. I don't care how long it takes. Because I know what Jesus has done for me. Man, when I was far from him, he saved me. When I was building my life off of sports, when I was building my life off of women in college, when I was making all sorts of bad decisions on dating relationships, and my own personal life started unraveling, and the friendships around me started breaking apart, and I was living a pretty isolated, lonely life, and that moment Jesus found me. And he said, I've got something greater for you.38:47This is true. Stats show that the people who reach other people are the ones who confess their sin more. Crazy. Think about that for a second. The people who are honest with themselves and honest about how far they've fallen between them and God. They're the ones who share their faith more. Why? Because he who's been forgiven much loves much. But he who's been forgiven little loves little.39:16Man, here's my invitation for you guys today. Some of you got to get right with Jesus right now. Some of you got to get right with Jesus. Maybe you've been clinging on to something that has been holding you captive, and you know it, and it's been disintegrating some of the relationships around you. Maybe your marriage has been tumbling. Maybe your friendships have been just uneasy. You got to get right. And it's not behavior management. You got to get right with your Savior. Maybe for some of you, you've never heard this before. And you're like,39:46I want that. I want a God who loves me and gave everything for me. You need to come. And there are going to be some people in just a minute that are going to be praying for you. And for the rest of us, you've got to know that your circumstances in life don't dictate the quality of your life. It's your Savior in heaven who died for you. Let's pray.More sermons on John →
