March 8th, 2020 John 4:5-26 Boundaries are a problem. - One wife may say of her husband, he’s too distant, too many boundaries between us. Another may say, he’s too controlling, not enough boundaries. - We were made as relational beings to be close to others, yet getting too close leaves us vulnerable, able to be hurt. - So often we learn to try to protect ourselves with boundaries keeping others away, yet then we struggle to connect and feel close. What should we do? This problem exists not only between us & people, but also between us & God. - Into the problem steps Jesus. - In the story of an encounter with a woman by a well, Jesus overcomes boundaries. - In this story there is a lot for us to learn and apply to ourselves. Jesus was traveling in a dry climate, and was thirsty. At a well he asked a woman for a drink. - In the conversation, Jesus overcame multiple boundaries, barriers. o Gender, race/ethnicity, religion, moral. All these boundaries do cause problems between people. - Men and women are different. No stereotype that fits all men or women, science as well as common sense tells us, men and women are different. o Those differences can cause, have caused, do cause problems between men and women; even violence of men against women, or women against men. o Jesus lived especially at a time in a culture where men simply had more opportunities than women; still is the case in many places today as well. - Ethnic, racial, national barrier. Jews and Samaritans were different people groups. - She said, why do you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink. Then John explains, Jews don’t associate with Samaritans. - Boundary, still the case today that people groups arrange themselves with other people groups that think like them, value the same things they value, see the world and express in language the same way. o This is a potential place of division that has lead to and still leads to discrimination, conflicts, even blood and violence between people groups. o Because we are different, and those differences are not easily dealt with, we struggle to get along with people who see the world differently than we do. - Same is true of religious differences. Say more about it later, but she brings up, you worship in one place, we worship in another. We believe different things. o This as well has been, still is a barrier that leads to conflict, argument, anger, and even war. o Another barrier that we struggle to deal with. How do you handle a person who has very different religious views? We struggle. - Also the difference in moral standard. Jesus is a morally pure rabbi, religious teacher. She is living a sinful lifestyle. o That has been, often is still a barrier today. If one person is viewed as living a morally pure life, and another is viewed as living a immoral life, it can get in the way of any meaningful connection happening. o Often the moral one can look down on the immoral one; and the immoral one reacts with either self contempt, or with accusation of hypocrisy. o Yet another barrier that we struggle to deal with. Jesus was presented with all the boundaries, all these barriers. How does he handle it all? He handles it with care. He cared about her, he cared for her. - Once heard a marriage counselor who deals w relationship betrayal talk about broken trust. He asked, when you’ve been betrayed in a relationship; you can’t trust the other person, what do you do? - You don’t just blindly trust them anyways; instead you care about them. You desire what is best for them, and act accordingly. - That’s what Jesus does for this woman.
o He wants a drink for himself, she brings up all kinds of barriers, all kinds of ways of putting distance between herself and Jesus, and he cares about her so that he persists in the conversation. o He wanted to give her the water that only he could give; whether he ever got a drink or not. v. 10. “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.”
He wants to give her something; but she brings up another boundary, barrier. - The well is deep, you don’t have a bucket. Are you greater than Jacob, who gave us this well? Boundary of human limitation. - There is only so much we can do to deal with all the divisiveness around us. And we need help, we need technology. A bucket is pretty basic, but it’s better than nothing. And if we don’t have certain technological solutions to the human divisions and problems and fighting that goes on, we’d be in a lot worse shape than we already are. - But we’re just limited in how much we can do to overcome the problem of divisiveness. And then we die. That’s a part of why she brought up Jacob. Jacob made a well and that’s good, but he’s dead now so he can’t do anything to help us; and do you think you’re greater than Jacob? Do you have some better solution than those who have gone before you that you can use to make things better before you die just like everyone else has? o This barrier comes because she is looking at Jesus as only a human guy who happened to be at a well when she was. o If Jesus is only a man, only a teacher, and not God himself, then she’s right? o If he lived long ago, taught some good things, but now is dead and gone, there are severe limitations on how much he can actually help you overcome barriers. - But what if Jesus is more than a man? Then the barrier is overcome. Pause and ask: Do you believe that Jesus is more than a man? That he is God himself in human flesh come to rescue us? - Of not, there are limitations on how much he can actually allow you to overcome barriers like human differences and limitations and death. - Unless Jesus is more than a man; then the way that gender, race, religion divides you from others will continue and can get worse; and you will find ways to rationalize your poor treatment of others. - We all do this in different ways. We see another person as a threat to the way we think life should be; and so we create a category for them in our minds, I’ll call it different. - And because we classify them as different, we make it ok to mistreat them in cruel and horrible ways. - And we allow the barriers and boundaries of being different to put distance between us and others and between us and God. And if left unchecked, that’s a downward spiral that leads to a place called hell, where boundaries and barriers between people and each other and people and God cannot be removed, but are endured to the torment of those who are locked into that terrible mindset; and it goes on forever. o That’s a serious barrier with serious consequences. - So, let’s look at how Jesus overcomes her objection. He says something very remarkable. v. 14 “whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty ever again. Rather, the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water, bubbling up to eternal life.” - One of many places where Jesus says something that no one else says. Off the charts in terms of the incredible promise of how much having Jesus in your life can improve you. - How could Jesus possible say this, how could these promises be true? - Before I answer, let me ask another question: will you allow yourself to believe that life could actually be as goo as Jesus says he can make it? o That you actually could get to a place where you never thirst, where inside of you is a spring of living water, never runs dry? o Or have you seen too much death; experienced too much disappointment and pain that you will not allow yourselves to get your hopes up? o Jesus changes everything. If not for him, I’d have no reason to tell you that you could have a future of never thirsting and have even now through faith a spring of living water that wells up inside of you.
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Jesus invites you to know this kind of life now through faith, and look forward to the full experience of that life when you live with him in glory. But before he can give all that to you, he needs to bring up the real barrier beneath all barriers. - The one divider that will if left undealt with will destroy you and everything you love about life. Go call your husband and come back, he said to the woman. - Why bring that up? - Because sin is the real barrier. Jesus cared about her enough to bring it up with her. - He put his finger on the area of her life that revealed most clearly that her life with God was broken. That her sin was acting as a ongoing barrier between her and God. We need Jesus to do the same to us. - God made us with a design, to live close to him. Certain designs are built into us by God. - When we sin we violate those designs and as a result, distance is put between us and God. o One example is how God made us as sexual beings. He designed sex to be for marriage and marriage to be for life. o This woman had 5 past husbands, and was currently living with a man that was not her husband. o Could be lots of reasons, we don’t know all the details, but after 6 men, it’s kind of clear that in some way she had farmed her happiness or worth as a person to these romantic relationships in a way that was violating the design God put into us. - We all do this in different ways. o Not only sex, and romantic relationships; but career and power; popularity and reputation. o In many different ways we say, my works, not God’s grace will be the things that makes me sure I’m ok. That my word will carry more weight than God’s in determining what is ok for me to be doing. Jesus brought it up, and you need him to bring it up with you. - You need him to show you the ways you are abandoning what God made you for to your own harm; the ways your sin is putting distance between you and God. Now she at that point brought up a religious dispute. - Maybe dodging the issue, maybe a legitimate concern. You worship in one place, we in another, whose right? - Basically Jesus says, we Jews are right. - What we believe is based on truth. He makes a truth claim. It’s ok to do that when religious disputes come up. o Won’t say any more about that now. - He handles that, and then gets her to where he really wants her to be. She and we have all these barriers, all the dividers between us and people, us and God. What is the solution? - Not just a truth claim; but truth embodied as God and man in one person. - She needed nothing less than the very Messiah promised in the OT. - You and I need nothing less than the very son of God come as a man to rescue us from what our human barriers would do to us. Jesus told her, I am the Messiah, and our story stopped there, but that changed everything for her. She left and told everyone about him. - No more barriers, no more distance, she was close to God through him, despite her past, despite all the things that could have kept her out, she was in with God because of Jesus. Now, why could that identification of Jesus as Messiah do that for her? How can it do that for you? Only because of where Jesus was willing to go for her and for us. Story begins with Jesus being thirsty, we’re not sure if he ever got a drink from her. - One other place where Jesus was thirsty. When he was on the cross, one of the 7 times that we know of that he spoke, he said, I am thirsty. - Jesus is the water of life for you because he was willing to go to that place of thirst, not just for his body, but also for his soul. - Jesus is the one who overcomes barriers because he allowed his life to be overcome with the death, the suffering that your sins brought on him. - Jesus is the one who brings you near to God because he was brought to a place where he was treated as far from his Father’s presence. He drank in our thirst.
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He allowed all the racism, all the abuse of men to women, women to men, all the divisiveness of all of us come upon him. He died thirsty, but then rose again to new life, and he now is the living water for you. - The living Jesus is the living water for your thirsty soul. - He is the spring of water who by faith can live in you so that you can: o Face hardship and not dry up beneath its heat. o BE excluded and not have to exclude in return. o Even face death and keep on living - Every barrier overcome by his death, by his resurrected life. - He has and is establishing an incredibly diverse group of people: o Men and women; people of all cultures have followed him. People with all kinds of backstories. - All because he took on all the diverse sins that we commit and by his death and resurrection has overcome that barrier between people and God, between people and each other.
So, a few points of application. 1. Will you let Jesus point out your sin to you? - Will you allow him to put his finger on the area of your life which makes obvious that your relationship with God is broken? Will you get honest with yourself about the areas of your life you know are broken? 2. How can you drink Jesus, the living water, in? - That woman probably came back to that well at different times, do you think she ever could go there and not remember Jesus? - How can you have daily reminders that Jesus is your living water? - For many of you, there is a time of your life that Jesus did something special with water for you? Your baptism. o A time when through that water and his word he poured himself his eternal life into you; and he still offers that same gift to you whenever you remember your baptism. - How can you build in times hearing from Jesus in the Bible so that you can be reminded over and over that he is the living water you need; and be more affected in your relationships with others by having the spring of living water inside of you? o At Grace we teach a class called Grow in Grace. We have opportunities to worship in Sundays and Wednesdays. We have Bible studies so Jesus is made to us the spring of living water he desires to be. 3. Finally, how can Jesus pour out of you? - We don’t know if Jesus ever got a drink, but it doesn’t seem like he was thirsty. Helping people was like water to him. Bringing people to God was like cool water on a warm day. - You were made not just to drink Jesus in, but to pour him out for other thirsty people, other people who will die of thirst without him. - How can you invite, and offer, and give Jesus to people? Who has God put in your life? A Samaritan woman? A struggling friend? Give them the water of Jesus that has been given to you. Jesus overcome barriers and gives living water. So drink him in, and pour him out for others too. Amen.